


us, again (the road to you will never end)

by mondeblue



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: 97 line supremacy, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Jeon Wonwoo is Whipped, Kim Mingyu is Whipped, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, they're both whipped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29527347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mondeblue/pseuds/mondeblue
Summary: There’s a moving van parked in the driveway, the back open to form a ramp. The front door is slightly ajar. Mingyu exchanges a glance with Minghao as they climb the stairs leading up to the porch, feeling a sudden onset of awkwardness.“They seem busy,” Minghao hisses. “Should we just leave these here?”“What? No!” Mingyu says. “We promised we would say hi!”“You promised you would say hi,” Minghao points out. “And then you just had to drag me into it-”“Oh shut up, Seokmin was your friend too-”“Can I help you?”They whirl around, mouths hanging open, caught in the middle of an argument. At the bottom of the steps, a boy who is definitely not Seokmin stares up at them, clearly uncomfortable, a box half the size of his body in his arms.Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”“Hey, Mingyu,” Wonwoo says quietly.(or: mingyu is in fifth grade when wonwoo moves away. he's in eleventh grade when wonwoo moves back.)
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu, but only in the background
Comments: 23
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A WARNING: this fic is going to be inordinately long. like, 150k+ long. like, i have no idea how it got this long, i started writing it almost half a year ago and here i am, a clown, a fool, a simp  
> also, don't ask me where this is set because i don't know either. just imagine a canadian high school but with the demographics of south korea. once again: i am a fool  
> anyway. updates will be once, maybe twice a week? then again, maybe uni will decide to simply Take Away My Rights, so we'll see how that goes.  
> thanks for reading in advance :)
> 
> title is from us, again by seventeen.

“Hey, did you hear? Seokmin’s moving back.”

“Really,” Mingyu comments. He hasn’t thought about Seokmin in a while - five years, actually. Hearing the name only brings fond memories to the surface, carefree childhood moments soaked in a sunset glow. “How do you know?”

Next to him, Minghao rolls his eyes. “He texted me, dumbass,” he says. “He probably texted you too.”

Mingyu pats around in his pockets and then groans. “I left my phone with my mom.” He shrugs. “He probably doesn’t have my number anyways. It’s not like either of us had a phone in fifth grade.”

“Nah, I gave it to him. He got my number from his mom who got it from my mom. Turns out they’ve been keeping in touch this whole time.” Minghao sighs. “As usual.”

Mingyu elbows him. “You obviously take after your dad,” he teases. Minghao’s mom is legitimately the nicest person he’s ever met, despite also being a little bit terrifying. He figures  _ that _ part runs in the family. “If you were anything like your mom it wouldn’t have taken me, like, two years to befriend you.”

“It would’ve taken less time if you weren’t so annoying,” Minghao refutes, elbowing him back, which  _ hurts _ , because Minghao is very bony and very strong. “Wanna say hi to Seokmin when he comes back?”

Mingyu shrugs, and sticks his popsicle back into his mouth.

\--

Most of the memories Mingyu has of Seokmin are emotional imprints, not defined moments. He just remembers that he was always smiling, warm and generous, and seemed to be best friends with everyone.

His  _ real _ best friend was Mingyu, though. Mingyu knows this because Seokmin told him on the first day of second grade, coming to sit next to him in the gymnasium. “Because I like you the most,” he said, when Mingyu asked why.

But  _ why? _ Mingyu wanted to say. But he didn’t, because Seokmin seemed to genuinely like him, and that was good enough.

\--

Mingyu checks his phone later that day. Sure enough, there’s an unread message.

**from: unknown**

hey mingyu!!!! remember me ~~~

im back~~~~~~ 

Mingyu laughs, those five years in between shrinking as he types a reply. Maybe Seokmin’s endless good nature is the one thing that stands the test of time.

\--

The Jeon-Lee family moves back exactly a week before school starts. Mingyu bakes a pie, and Minghao’s mom shoves a large container of homemade dumplings into their arms before they set off.

In elementary school, Mingyu walked three blocks, then took a left and walked two more before arriving at Seokmin’s house. Muscle memory almost propels him in that direction before Minghao stops him and asks if he’s stupid. 

Their new house is four blocks away, facing the field with the bleachers that he and Minghao hung out on the entire summer. Mingyu remembers seeing the SOLD sign in front of that house in the distance, a bold red print.

There’s a moving van parked in the driveway, the back open to form a ramp. The front door is slightly ajar. Mingyu exchanges a glance with Minghao as they climb the stairs leading up to the porch, feeling a sudden onset of awkwardness.

“They seem busy,” Minghao hisses. “Should we just leave these here?”

“What? No!” Mingyu says. “We promised we would say hi!”

“ _ You _ promised you would say hi,” Minghao points out. “And then you just  _ had _ to drag me into it-”

“Oh shut up, Seokmin was your friend too-”

“Can I help you?”

They whirl around, mouths hanging open, caught in the middle of an argument. At the bottom of the steps, a boy who is definitely not Seokmin stares up at them, clearly uncomfortable, a box half the size of his body in his arms.

Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”

\--

Mingyu was always kind of aware of Wonwoo’s presence, in the periphery of his mind, moving silently through his house whenever Mingyu was over. 

“Oh, Wonwoo? He’s my brother,” Seokmin explains the first time Mingyu comes over and a boy other than Seokmin answers the door, letting Mingyu in before running back to his room. “Well, actually we just have the same dad. He feels like a real brother to me, though. He’s really funny once you get past all the shyness.”

“I’m sure he is,” Mingyu says honestly, a little intrigued.

From that point on, he always makes a point of looking for Wonwoo whenever he hangs out with Seokmin, always asking to go to the bathroom in case he runs into him on the way there. He rarely does, but at least Wonwoo opens the door for him sometimes, saying a brief hello before disappearing again. He doesn’t mention it to anyone, but he starts looking forward to just saying hi, starts wondering what they would talk about if Wonwoo ever stops to say anything more.

He finds out in third grade, on his first sleepover of the year at Seokmin’s house. They’re huddled in the living room exploring Seokmin’s shiny new video game console when Wonwoo comes downstairs and sits on the couch on Seokmin’s other side.

“Let me play after this,” he says.

“Aw, you aren’t scared of Mingyu anymore?” Seokmin teases. 

“You were scared of me?” Mingyu asks quietly, frowning down at his controller. He doesn’t know why he’s so hurt, but he is.

Wonwoo elbows Seokmin. “Don’t listen to him,” he tells Mingyu. “I’m just not good around strangers.”

It’s the most Wonwoo’s ever said to him, and it makes him feel just a little bit better. “Well, I’m glad I’m not a stranger anymore,” he says happily. He searches for something else to say, but then his character dies. Seokmin calls him a loser. Wonwoo laughs at him, nose scrunched, and Mingyu isn’t even that upset.

From that point on, Wonwoo joins them whenever they play video games. He always leaves halfway through to finish his homework, but Mingyu finally finds out how funny he really is - and he  _ is _ funny, sometimes in an unexpectedly witty way, but usually in a really lame and corny way. Mingyu always laughs a little harder at the jokes that come out of his mouth, mostly because he looks so proud whenever he tells them, a smug smile on his face.

Two years pass like that, Seokmin sandwiched between them as they laugh on the couch. Wonwoo starts making conversation with him when he greets him at the door, and he’s happy.

But then Wonwoo starts middle school, and all of a sudden he’s too busy video calling his friends and playing online games to play Mario Kart with the two of them. “You guys are lame,” he says when Seokmin invites him the first weekend of the school year, barely pausing on his way up the stairs. 

Mingyu leaves a little early that day, and if Seokmin knows why, he’s gracious enough not to say anything. Wonwoo recedes back into the shadows of the house, never looking Mingyu in the eyes.

On the last day of fifth grade, Seokmin drags him to the park to celebrate graduating elementary school. He drags Minghao along, too, because the two of them spent the past two years trying to befriend the Chinese student who had the misfortune of transferring in during fourth grade and they’ve only succeeded now. They buy popsicles from an ice cream truck with their hard-earned pocket money and sit on the grass, enjoying the summer sun and talking about the future.

“I’m so glad we’re all going to the same middle school,” Seokmin says for what must be the tenth time. “Imagine if we spent all those years trying to get you to be friends with us and then never saw you again!”

“Yeah, well, you’ll see me again,” Minghao says drily. “Unfortunately.” Mingyu thinks he can see a small smile on Minghao’s face, though, so he’s not too hurt.

“Aw, come on, you like us! Otherwise you wouldn’t have come.” Seokmin jumps to his feet, brushing the grass off his knees. “Come on, let’s go play!”

“Ugh,” Minghao says, but he lets Mingyu drag him up and to the playground.

They play all the games three ten-year-old boys can play - tag, sandman, hide and seek. It’s during a particularly intense game of tag that Mingyu launches himself onto the slide in an attempt to escape, but his legs are getting longer every day and his brain hasn’t caught up yet, and he’s falling off the slide and making hard contact with the sand below before he can make any attempt to save himself.

He blinks up at the sun, stunned, before the pain in his hand registers. “Ow,” he says aloud, and tries to rub away the tears pooling in his eyes. When he looks down at his right palm, at the bright red gash there, the tears start flowing unabated.

“Mingyu, are you o- oh, man, that looks bad!” Seokmin and Minghao rush over. Minghao leans forward to examine the wound, while Seokmin brushes the sand off his pants. Neither of them say anything about the crying, which Mingyu is grateful for. 

“You gotta go home,” Minghao says. “That looks pretty bad.”

Mingyu shakes his head. “My mom isn’t home yet,” he mumbles.

“Then you should come over,” Seokmin insists. “My mom always said you have to rinse and bandage the wound before it gets infected, and you can’t do that by yourself.”

Mingyu nods, sniffling, and Minghao takes it as a cue to help him up, pulling him along by his uninjured hand. He walks the entire way to Seokmin’s house cradling his hand to his chest, his friends on either side of him like bodyguards.

Minghao parts ways with them once he’s near his house. He promises that he’ll come hang out more during the summer, and gives Mingyu one last pat on the shoulder before heading down his street. Seokmin makes up for Minghao’s missing presence by talking loudly the rest of the way to his house.

Seokmin sits him down on the couch before rummaging around in his kitchen cupboards. “Wonwoo!” he calls, his voice ringing through the house. 

Mingyu tenses at the name - Wonwoo already thinks he’s lame, what will he think when he sees him crying? “It’s okay,” he says quietly, “I can just-”

“What’s going on?” Wonwoo’s already at the bottom of the stairs, looking annoyed, and Mingu shrinks even further into himself. “I was doing homework.”

“Mingyu’s hurt,” Seokmin explains, head still stuck in a cupboard. “Do you remember where mom keeps the first aid kit-”

“You’re hurt?” Wonwoo cuts off the rest of Seokmin’s sentence, his eyes fixed on Mingyu. Mingyu’s well aware of how pathetic he looks, eyes red, nose still runny, cradling his bloody hand. To his surprise, all the annoyance fades from Wonwoo’s eyes as he looks at him, replaced by something Mingyu’s never seen before. “Lemme see.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Mingyu mumbles as Wonwoo kneels in front of him. He flinches as Wonwoo reaches for him, curling further into the couch. “You don’t have to help me.”

Wonwoo scoffs. “It’s not like you can help yourself,” he says. Mingyu feels his face heating up in shame, even more embarrassed than before. But Wonwoo’s fingers are gentle when they grasp his wrist, and he winces sympathetically when he sees the blood.

“Seokmin, call Mingyu’s mom,” he calls into the kitchen. “I think he needs stitches.” He looks into Mingyu’s eyes, and even though he scoffed at him and spent a year ignoring him he looks  _ worried.  _ It makes Mingyu’s heart ache, makes him want to ask  _ why? _ “Go to the bathroom and run it under warm water.”

Mingyu nods. Wonwoo steps away to give him space, and he gingerly climbs to his feet, angling his hand so the blood doesn’t drip onto the floor. 

The water stings, deep in his skin, and Mingyu bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut against the pain. When he makes his way back into the living room, Wonwoo is sitting on the couch, rummaging through the first aid kit. Seokmin is on the phone in the kitchen, stumbling over his words as he explains what happened to the person on the other end - Mingyu’s mom, presumably. 

Wonwoo looks up at him as he approaches and pats the empty space on the couch next to him. “I don’t really know how to do this,” he confesses, holding up a roll of gauze, “but I remember seeing my mom do this for Seokmin once, so.” He gestures for Mingyu to give him his hand.

Mingyu obliges, and almost chokes when Wonwoo pulls his hand into his lap, his fingers still gentle. It’s so different from the cold, indifferent Wonwoo he’d known for the past year, and Mingyu feels nothing but shame, for inconveniencing someone who clearly has no time for him. “Sorry,” he says aloud. 

Wonwoo glances up from where he’s clumsily wrapping the bandage around his hand, and frowns. “What are you saying sorry for? You didn’t get hurt on purpose.” He must make a mistake, because he sighs under his breath and starts again. It only makes Mingyu feel worse.

“Sorry for making you do this,” he says. “I know I’m annoying.”

Wonwoo’s head snaps up, mouth open as if to retort, before he visibly deflates. “You’re not annoying,” he says, after a pause.

“Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” Mingyu accuses. “You never play video games with us anymore.”

Wonwoo sighs again and scrubs at his eyes. “I know. I’m sorry,” he says openly, taking Mingyu by surprise. It’s genuine and warm, and for the first time, Mingyu understands that maybe Wonwoo made some choices he didn’t want to make. “My friends told me it’s lame to hang out with elementary school kids, so I didn’t.”

“Well, I’m not an elementary school kid now,” Mingyu says proudly, puffing his chest out. “So you can hang out with me again!”

Wonwoo laughs. “Yeah, I guess I can,” he admits. He stands up, giving Mingyu’s hand a final pat. “You’re all good now,” he says. “Well, as good as you can be.”

Mingyu blinks down at his hand, now wrapped in a crudge bandage. He’d completely forgotten that he was injured. “Thanks!” he says cheerfully, his spirits considerably lifted. “I feel much better already.”

Wonwoo smiles at him, and looks like he’s about to say something else when they’re interrupted by Seokmin in the kitchen. “Your mom’s gonna come pick you up from our house and take you to the hospital in case you need stitches,” he says, making his way to the living room. “Wanna play something until they get there?”

“Sure!” Mingyu says. He looks over at Wonwoo, who’s packing up the first aid kit. “Wanna join?”

Seokmin starts, “nah, he’s probably busy-”

“No, I’ll join,” Wonwoo says, and Mingyu very nearly jumps with joy. “Just let me put this away first.”

“Oh.” Seokmin says, surprised, before shrugging and turning around to search for the TV remote. Mingyu grins at Wonwoo, who smiles back, and barely feels the sting in his hand for the rest of the day.

Mingyu leaves Seokmin’s house that day looking forward, more than ever, to the rest of the summer. Seokmin moves away a few weeks later. Mingyu doesn’t see Wonwoo again.

\--

Mingyu gapes. “Wonwoo?”

“Hey, Mingyu,” Wonwoo says quietly. Mingyu swallows, because apparently puberty dropped Wonwoo’s voice to the bottom of the ocean while he was gone. He’s taller, too, and his arms are steady under the weight of the box. Mingyu swallows again, harder.

Wonwoo holds his gaze for one more drawn-out moment before he shifts his eyes to the right, and clears his throat. “Hi, Minghao.”

Mingyu snaps his head to the side. He’d completely forgotten that there was someone else there. From the smirk on Minghao’s face, he’s fully aware of what just happened. “Hey,” he greets, lifting the container in his hands. “We brought offerings.”

Wonwoo blinks. “Oh, thanks.” He tilts his chin in the direction of the door. “You guys can just go in. Seokmin should be in there somewhere.”

The words don’t register in Mingyu’s brain. It’s only when Minghao nudges him that he turns around with a start, almost tripping over his feet as he pushes the door open and steps into the house.

“Get it together,” Minghao hisses to him as they toe their shoes off in the entryway, Wonwoo coming up behind them. “If you drop that pie I’ll kill you.”

“ _ I _ baked the pie,” Mingyu says, indignant. Minghao just rolls his eyes and walks away.

There’s cardboard boxes scattered all over the floor, and what looks like the headboard of a bed in the middle of the living room. All the blinds and windows have been opened, filling the house with sunlight and fresh air. It’s eerily silent for a brief moment before someone lets out an inhuman shriek from somewhere on the second floor.

“Mingyu! Minghao!” And Seokmin comes thundering down the stairs, barely giving Mingyu any time to put his pie down before he’s being swept up in a hurricane of affection. Minghao gets dragged in shortly after, and then they’re all standing in Seokmin’s new house in their old neighborhood, hugging and laughing and crying a little.

Crying a  _ lot _ , Mingyu corrects when Seokmin pulls away, tears freely flowing from his eyes. “I missed you guys so much,” he sniffs, wiping at his face, looking back and forth between them like he’s trying to visually account for five years of change. “Ugh, Mingyu, you’re so  _ tall _ , what the heck?”

“I know, right?” Minghao agrees, elbowing Mingyu in the side. “Like a beanstalk.”

“Hey, mean!” Mingyu pouts, cradling his ribs. “I baked a  _ pie _ for you!”

“You baked a pie for Seokmin, I owe you nothing,” Minghao dismisses. Mingyu pouts harder.

“Aw, I missed you guys,” Seokmin says again, and - oh, no, he’s crying even harder. That part of him hasn’t changed either, Mingyu supposes. “And Minghao! What happened to your  _ cheeks? _ ”

“No, don’t you dare-” Minghao starts, but he’s cut off when Seokmin starts pinching his face, exclaiming loudly about how “they aren’t as squishy anymore, Minghao, how  _ dare _ you”. Mingyu steps away so he won’t get caught in the crossfire when Minghao eventually commits murder, and hits someone standing behind him.

“Ah, sorry-” he steps on a foot as he stumbles, and winces. “ _ Sorry _ , I’m-”

Wonwoo reaches out to steady him, putting a hand on his bicep. “That hasn’t changed, huh?” he says, laughing, and Mingyu is so glad he isn’t holding anything at the moment because he definitely would’ve dropped it. 

_ The nose scrunch _ , his brain screams at him.  _ I know _ , he screams back.

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean?” he asks, indignant, crossing his arms over his chest. Wonwoo’s eyes flicker down as he does it, and Mingyu allows himself a small triumphant smile - he’s finally reaping the benefits of his summer workout regime. All those protein shakes were  _ worth it _ .

Wonwoo just laughs again and pokes at his shoulder. “It means you’re still a danger to humanity,” he teases. “Remember that time you broke two of our mugs in one night?”

Mingyu groans at the reminder, burying his face in his hands. “Ugh, why’d you have to bring that up? My day was going so well.”

“You’re probably even  _ more _ of a threat now that you’re taller,” Wonwoo muses. “They should keep you in confinement or something. Like an SCP.”

“Huh?” Mingyu peers at Wonwoo through the gap between his fingers, but the latter is just smiling to himself at his own joke like the nerd he is. “What’s that?”

Wonwoo opens his mouth, but they’re interrupted by Minghao physically barging in between them, holding a knife. (A butter knife, but still. Scary. Minghao could probably kill someone with a pencil, John Wick-style.) “Sorry to disrupt,” he says, “but do you guys want some of Mingyu’s pie?”

Wonwoo shrugs. His demeanor shifts a little with Minghao, just a little more shuttered, which makes Mingyu weirdly happy. “Sure.”

They eat the pie from paper plates Seokmin found, standing around the cardboard box serving as their makeshift dinner table. Seokmin and Wonwoo’s parents come in a few moments later, carrying the last of their belongings, and join them. Mrs. Jeon-Lee coos at Mingyu and Minghao, a mirror image of her son, while her husband stands in the background looking apologetic. The taste of Mingyu’s pie makes Seokmin tear up all over again. Mingyu feels weirdly at home, in this empty house full of childhood memories.

They leave an hour later, the sky turning warm with the sunset. Minghao lures him into a false sense of security by staying silent as they walk away from the house, but a block later he turns to him, eyes sparkling, and says, “so  _ that’s _ why you were so excited about coming here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mingyu says firmly, even as he thinks about the rim of Wonwoo’s glasses glinting in the sunlight. Minghao just cackles.


	2. Chapter 2

“For the last time,” Minghao says, massaging the bridge of his nose, “you look fine .”

“ Just fine? Really?” Mingyu whines, untucking and re-tucking the front of his shirt for the seventh time in the past ten minutes, scrutinizing his reflection in the mirror. It still doesn’t look right. He untucks it again.

“I need to find new friends,” Minghao mumbles.

Okay, so Mingyu will admit that he is a little nervous for the first day of school. He spent half an hour last night frantically video calling Minghao just to pick a first-day outfit, and then another ten minutes earlier in the morning fixing his hair. He knows it doesn’t make a difference - these people have known him for two years already, and it’s not like he looks that different from sophomore year, barring a minor increase in height - but still. He’s nervous. Junior year is a big deal.

Minghao checks his phone and clamps his hand over Mingyu’s wrist. “We need to go now or we’ll be late,” he says. 

Mingyu opens his mouth to retort, but stops when murder flashes in Minghao’s eyes. “Okay, okay,” he mumbles, and gives himself one last glance in the mirror before Minghao is hauling him out the door.

It’s a five-minute walk to the bus stop, and then a twenty-minute bus ride to school. Mingyu is jittery with nerves the entire trip, drumming his fingers against his thigh restlessly. “Ugh, you’ll be fine ,” Minghao says as they arrive at their stop, grabbing his hand and dragging him off the bus.

When they enter the courtyard, it’s already bustling with students; the wide-eyed freshmen cling to the walls, and everyone else gathers in clusters, locating their friends. The two of them loiter at the entrance for a few moments before someone shouts “yo, Mingyu! Minghao!”

It’s Soonyoung, with a very reluctant-looking Jihoon trailing behind him. “We’re in the same math class again!” Soonyoung greets, beaming. He re-dyed his hair over the summer, going for a platinum blonde instead of his old blue-grey. Next to them, Jihoon and Minghao conspire to take over the world, or whatever it is terrifying people talk about. “You have to save a seat for me, we’re like, math buddies now.”

Mingyu laughs. “Of course,” he agrees. “By the way, the hair looks great.”

Soonyoung’s smile grows impossibly brighter. “Thanks!” he touches his bangs gingerly. “I thought it was gonna look bad, but Jihoon convinced me to do it, so.” Someone shouts his name from across the courtyard, and he looks at Mingyu apologetically, already reaching for Jihoon’s hand. “I have to go, but I’ll see you in math! Bye Minghao!”

With that, they’re off, Jihoon’s “don’t touch me” echoing in their wake. “What a welcome,” Minghao says, already looking tired. Mingyu just giggles.

They walk around the courtyard for a few more minutes, greeting more friends. At some point, Minghao disappears to talk to a member of the mysterious culture club he’s an executive in. Mingyu makes up for his absence by making the rounds with his acquaintances, waving and hugging and high-fiving. 

He starts looking for Minghao once everyone is sufficiently greeted, finding him talking to some mutual friends, a group of sophomores who were on the soccer team with Mingyu last year. Chan looks as cute as ever, Seungkwan’s hair is now a warm rusty brown, and Vernon doesn’t even seem awake. 

Seungkwan points an accusing finger at him the second he sees him approaching. “No, shut up ,” he says. “You got taller ?”

“By a few centimeters, yeah,” Mingyu admits, grinning when he’s met by a collective groan. “Hey, I can’t help it!”

“I’m going to steal your bones eventually,” Chan threatens, which is legitimately terrifying. Mingyu takes a few steps back.

“Bones?” Vernon mumbles blearily. There’s a giant cowlick at the back of his head, which Seungkwan is trying valiantly to smooth down. Minghao gives him a comforting pat on the shoulder.

They chat until the warning bell rings, forcing them to disperse. Mingyu and Minghao depart for their shared locker, the same one they’ve had since freshman year. At this point, it’s become muscle memory, tracing the steps from the entrance to the secluded hallway. Mingyu waves at a few more people on the way there, smiling so wide it hurts.

Minghao glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “Feeling better now?” he asks.

Mingyu just grins. Minghao rolls his eyes and turns away.

\--

“Mingyu!” It’s Soonyoung again, dropping himself into the adjacent seat with way too much enthusiasm for early-morning Calculus. He props an elbow on his desk and leans in conspiratorially, eyes crinkled in a gleeful smile. “Thanks for saving a seat for me! I’m so glad you’re in my class again, I totally would’ve died last year without you.”

Mingyu laughs. Being around Soonyoung is like looking directly at the sun, warm but a little blinding. “It’s okay, my face would’ve revived you,” he assures.

“Ugh, and yet you’re the worst,” Soonyoung says, smacking him in the arm with unprecedented force. Mingyu rubs his arm as Soonyoung leans closer and whispers, pointing towards the back of the room, “by the way, get a load of that guy. Subtly!” he hisses when Mingyu twists himself around to look. 

Mingyu tries again, angling his body inconspicuously. Sure enough, in the middle of the otherwise empty back row, an unfamiliar guy is scrolling through his phone, clearly already bored out of his mind. He’s - well.

“Whoa,” Mingyu says, which is pretty much all he can say. “He’s new, right?” There’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed a guy who looks like he stepped straight out of a historical drama. 

“Duh,” Soonyoung says. “I saw him walk in today with two other crazy attractive guys. Seriously, where did these people come from?”

Mingyu blinks at him, the words two other crazy attractive guys slowly clicking into place in his brain. “I, uh, might know those two other guys,” he says carefully.

Soonyoung gapes at him. He’s clearly about to ask more, but then the teacher walks in, and he has to settle for grumbling to himself about how the world is unfair or something. Mingyu turns to face forward, grinning.

\--

Seokmin and Minghao are both in his Literature class, taking up two-thirds of a three-person desk arrangement. Both their bags are on the empty desk. Mingyu almost tears up as he walks over to them, already looking forward to the rest of the semester.

“Hey, who said you could sit here?” Minghao glares up at him as he moves to sit down, putting a hand over his bag protectively. “This is our designated bag area.”

“Yeah, find somewhere else,” Seokmin agrees, but he’s significantly worse at keeping a straight face, and is already grinning. “You’re not cool enough for us.”

“Stop it, you guys are my only friends,” Mingyu whines, forcing his way onto the seat as Minghao groans in disappointment. “I don’t wanna be alone.”

Minghao shrugs, passive. “It’s what you deserve,” he says mercilessly.

Seokmin leans closer to him. He would get along great with Soonyoung, Mingyu notes. “Hey, is it true you own 2.3 billion dollars in assets?”

Minghao cackles. Mingyu buries his face in his hands, feeling blood rush to his cheeks. “Jeonghan is the worst ,” he declares. He peeks at Seokmin through the gaps between his fingers. “It’s not true. A senior last year started the rumor because he’s the worst.”

“He really is,” Minghao agrees. “How’s your morning been so far, Seokmin?”

“Pretty great,” Seokmin says. “The people here are so friendly! Some of them stare, though.” He rubs at his chin. “Do I look weird or something?”

Mingyu straightens, affronted. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Seokmin show an ounce of insecurity - the Seokmin he remembers seemed to be infallibly positive, without a care in the world. Although, he supposes, five years is a lot of time for a person to change. 

He realizes, then, that maybe - maybe he doesn’t really know anything about Seokmin at all, anymore.

Still. Ridiculous. “You’re super good-looking,” he insists, because it’s the truth. It’s an added bonus, though, when Seokmin beams at him. “You’re just new, that’s all.”

“I hope so,” Seokmin says, but he looks considerably happier. Minghao hums in agreement and pulls his bag off Mingyu’s desk.

\--

Mingyu offers to show Seokmin around the area during their lunch break, and like everything else they’ve done so far, Minghao gets dragged along against his will. They walk through the wide, grassy field behind their school, pointing out the soccer nets and the bleachers, and then board the bus to a small food court about a five-minute ride away. Overall, it’s not a lot of options, but it’s reliable, for when Mingyu forgets to pack a lunch or just wants to get out of the school for a short while. 

To Seokmin, though, apparently it’s a dream come true. “The school I went to before was in a super rural place, so there was nothing to do except look for a stray cow or something,” he explains as they get off the bus. “Now we can actually do stuff!”

“I think looking for stray cows is pretty cool,” Mingyu points out. “I’ve never actually seen a cow in person.”

“They smell pretty bad,” is all Seokmin says, wrinkling his nose.

Mingyu laughs. “How was that rural place, by the way? You haven’t told us yet.”

Seokmin shrugs. “It isn’t that interesting,” he says. “We just lived in this small village. The heating didn’t even work half the time. The people there were nice, but,” he shrugs, “they just think differently from the people here, you know?”

His smile falters, the sight looking out of place on his face. Mingyu nudges him and teases, “so obviously we’re better, right?”

Seokmin lights up again. A comforting constant - at least it’s still easy to cheer him up, because he gravitates so naturally towards happiness. “Of course,” he says happily, and sounds like he means it.

\--

They end up getting coffee from the local chain store. Mingyu is waiting for their drinks when a familiar voice says, "hey."

He pretends to be surprised, turning and smiling when he sees Wonwoo standing in front of him, his hands clasped behind his back. He’s wearing a large hoodie and track pants, his bangs brushing the rims of his glasses, looking absurdly small despite being a solid six feet tall. 

“Aw, you look like an old man,” Mingyu teases, resisting the urge to pinch Wonwoo’s cheeks. He settles for fixing his hair instead, brushing down an errant strand, and cheers internally when Wonwoo doesn’t lean away from the sudden touch. “How’s your first day been so far?”

Wonwoo huffs, which just makes him look even cuter. “It was fine until you called me an old man,” he mutters.

“Not like an actual old man,” Mingyu remedies. “Like a super cute, young old man or something.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.” But Wonwoo’s smiling, and he’s not reacting weirdly to being called cute, so Mingyu counts that as a win.

“Hey, why’d you leave me?” They’re interrupted by the guy Soonyoung pointed out in Calc, who comes up behind Wonwoo and drapes an arm around his shoulders. Wonwoo doesn’t shrug him off. Mingyu suddenly feels very stupid for being so happy about the hair-touching thing. “Oh, it’s you!” the guy says, looking shocked by Mingyu’s presence. “You’re from my math class!”

“I am,” Mingyu confirms, a little happy to be recognized. “You’re new, right?”

“Yeah! I’m Junhui,” and Junhui extends the arm that isn’t around Wonwoo to shake Mingyu’s hand. Mingyu reaches out, inexplicably annoyed at the constant point of contact between the two of them. 

Instead of shaking his hand, though, Junhui just fistbumps his open palm, leagues away from the stoic, quiet stranger on his phone in the morning. Mingyu laughs, startled, a little ashamed of feeling annoyed towards someone so friendly and endearingly weird. “I’m Mingyu,” he says.

Junhui nods. “Cool,” he says very solemnly, before turning to Wonwoo, who is watching their interaction. “Hey, can you pay for my drink? I left my wallet at home.”

“When is your wallet not at home,” Wonwoo bites, but his smile is fond as he looks at Junhui, already taking his wallet out. The sleeves of his sweater are pulled over his hands, so that only the tips of his fingers are poking out. 

It’s adorable, but Mingyu feels like he’s intruding on something as he watches them, so he makes a point to turn away and rejoin his friends, who’ve already collected their order. Minghao hands him his drink, looking past his shoulder at Junhui and Wonwoo. “So you met Junhui?” he asks. His accent shifts a little when he pronounces Junhui’s name, falling back into its comfort zone. 

“Yeah,” Mingyu says. “And hey, another Chinese person!”

Minghao rolls his eyes. “We’re not going to be best friends just because we come from the same country,” he says. “He seems cool, though.” Which is basically a glowing recommendation in Minghao’s books, so Mingyu discounts that first statement.

“He is,” Seokmin pipes up. They wave goodbye to the others and start making their way back to school, coffees in hand. “He and his family moved from the village with us. He’s Wonwoo’s best friend.”

“I noticed,” Mingyu mumbles. Minghao glances at him, obviously noticing the tension in his voice, but mercifully doesn’t say anything.

Mingyu stays quiet for the rest of the walk home, only laughing whenever Seokmin makes a joke or says something dumb. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he was jealous of Junhui in the coffee shop - and for what? Stealing Wonwoo? It’s not like Mingyu owns him, and besides, being best friends for five years trumps being his brother’s childhood friend any day. It’s just that a part of Mingyu, a dumb, selfish part, thought he could keep just a little bit of Wonwoo to himself - the fond smile, the quiet gestures of affection, the lame jokes - despite how little actually ties the two of them together.

He turns these thoughts over and over in his head all the way to third period Physics. Minghao, seated next to him, glances over at him, sighs, and says, “it’s not like his attention is limited edition. Just because he likes someone else at the same time doesn’t mean he likes you any less.”

It’s scary, sometimes, how he knows exactly what Mingyu needs to hear. But it’s mostly really touching, so Mingyu just grins and leans over to hug him silently. Minghao says “ugh, gross,” but doesn’t make any move to push him away.

\--

Seokmin and Wonwoo join them on the way home. Minghao looks at Mingyu very purposefully before jogging forward and pulling Seokmin along with him, leaving Mingyu alone with Wonwoo. Mingyu isn’t sure whether to feel grateful or offended.

They don’t talk the first few minutes into the walk. Wonwoo hums under his breath the whole time, which Mingyu allows himself to enjoy before curiosity overcomes him and he blurts out, “where’s Junhui?”

Wonwoo glances at him. “Why would Junhui be here?”

Mingyu shrugs, feeling inexplicably nervous in the light of Wonwoo’s full attention. “I heard you came here with him, so I thought…” he says awkwardly, trailing off. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t really have a good reason for asking.

Wonwoo, thankfully, brushes the awkwardness aside. “We were running late, so he offered to give us a ride. He doesn’t live near us. Who told you we came together?”

“That’s what she said, first of all,” Mingyu says, which earns him an elbow to the ribs. He takes it easily, because no one’s elbows rival Minghao’s. “And a friend from Calc did.”

Wonwoo hums. “You have a lot of friends,” he points out. Mingyu thinks he can hear something negative under Wonwoo’s passive surface, like cobwebs behind a carefully placed piece of furniture. Nothing like jealousy, but more like - bitterness?

“It’s mostly just Minghao,” he says, because it’s the truth. “And Seokmin now, obviously. The rest is just because I’m a hot piece of ass, so people naturally gravitate towards me.”

Wonwoo squints up at him, relaxing when he sees the wide grin on Mingyu’s face. “I don’t know how they could possibly like you, with that ego,” he shoots back, with his own version of a smile.

“Hey, you like me!” Mingyu protests. When Wonwoo doesn’t reply immediately, he glances at him out of the corner of his eye, only to be met with a cold stare. His heart drops, suddenly heavy. “Uh, unless you don’t. Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume.”

Wonwoo’s cold stare breaks, turning into a reassuring smile. “If that’s what you want to believe,” he says, which, what is that even supposed to mean?

Mingyu decides to just focus on Wonwoo’s smile instead. “Nah, you definitely like me,” he declares. “Otherwise you would be all-” he does his best impression of Wonwoo’s resting face, which boils down to narrowing his eyes and curving the corners of his mouth down. “-still. You know?”

“First of all, that was a terrible impression,” which, okay, fair, “and second of all, it’s not nice to make fun of the way people look.”

“I don’t think anyone could make fun of the way you look,” Mingyu points out, gesturing at Wonwoo, all six feet of broad shoulders and high cheekbones. 

It doesn’t garner the reaction he expected. Wonwoo’s smile falters, and he looks down, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah,” he says, and then falls silent. Mingyu's heart drops all over again.

Wonwoo doesn’t say anything for the rest of the walk. Doesn’t even sing. It’s awful, because Mingyu usually can recognize when he’s made a social misstep a few seconds after it happens, but in this case he genuinely doesn’t know what he did wrong. After they part ways, Wonwoo avoiding his eyes, he walks home alone, replaying his words over and over in his head, trying and failing to find any possible way they could’ve been misconstrued.

But then, he realizes as he unlocks the door to an empty house, maybe that’s the whole problem. He’s been approaching this as if this is the same Wonwoo from five years ago, who beat him at Mario Kart, who tended to him when he was hurt. But that Wonwoo is different from this Wonwoo, no matter how similar their smiles are or how easily they both can make Mingyu laugh.

And maybe, just like with Seokmin, the whole problem is that he doesn’t actually know anything about this Wonwoo at all.

\--

The first week of school speeds by. There’s added pressure now that the classes he’s in are university prep classes, but his path has been made clear to him the second he graduated middle school, so he’s not too worried. People still ask him for math help, still give him high-fives and hugs when they see him in the hallways. On the rare days he forgets to pack himself a lunch, he scores an extra brownie from the lunch ladies in the cafeteria, who all coo at him when he smiles and compliment him about his height.

Seokmin and Wonwoo join their bus rides to and from school, and he actually, legitimately befriends Junhui without any green-eyed monsters in the way. He spends the majority of his time with Minghao and Seokmin, who has found his place within their dynamic with such fluid ease that Mingyu forgets about the five years in between sometimes. Even Wonwoo makes a space for himself within Mingyu’s life, as if his strange behavior on the first day of school never happened, smiling at him when they pass each other in the hallways.

Mingyu is good. Mingyu is happy.

And then soccer season starts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: i know nothing about soccer. i cannot play sports to save my life. if you play soccer pls read at ur own discretion

There’s nothing inherently bad about soccer - Mingyu likes it, it keeps him in shape, and it’s the one extracurricular activity his mom actually approves of. It’s just two hours after school a day, two days a week. There’s tryouts, but he was captain of the junior varsity team last year, so he’s never doubted his chances of making it in.

Sure enough, he does make it in. Soonyoung’s on the team, too, so he has good company during break times. The only time he’s lonely is on the bus ride home, but he can appreciate the aesthetic of it, leaning against the window with his hair damp from the showers and his headphones in. The ache in his legs after a good practice feels good, laughing with Soonyoung feels good, the coach praising him for a particularly good pass feels good.

Two weeks later, when the weather has shifted to a biting, damp cold that makes Mingyu huddle in on himself in his thin uniform, he notices someone on the bleachers.

There’s always a few people on the bleachers during their practices - friends of teammates, the occasional parent. Mingyu is always just a little bit aware of the audience as he plays, but he’s never paid attention to the specific people populating the metal benches. He notices this person, though, because there’s only one six-foot-tall person in the school with the ability to compact himself into such a tiny space.

He makes a beeline for the bleachers as soon as they’re dismissed. “Hey,” he greets. “I didn’t know you had friends on the team.”

Wonwoo looks up at the sound of his voice, taking his headphones out of his ears. He’s in his quintessential hoodie-and-sweatpants combination, his hair mussed by the wind, a textbook open on the semi-flat surface of his knees. He’s clutching a heat pack between sweater-pawed hands. Mingyu almost dies. 

Wonwoo says, very slowly, “I don’t.”

Mingyu blinks at him. Wonwoo blinks back, very clearly overestimating his capacity for reading between the lines, if his gradually deepening frown is any indication.

Then it dawns on Mingyu, and he is actually going to die.

“You’re here for me?” he blurts out, pointing a finger at his own chest as if to remind the both of them that yes, this is he. This is Kim Mingyu. 

Wonwoo laughs at him. He’s not even that offended, considering the way Wonwoo looks right now and also the fact that his heart is going to uwu its way out of his ribcage. “Aren’t you supposed to be smart or something?”

“Hey, rude!” The uwu lessens considerably. Mingyu is a little offended. “Being good at math doesn’t help me understand anything you say.”

“You would understand better if you read once in a while,” Wonwoo says, which is very fair. Literature has consistently been Mingyu’s worst class throughout his entire educational career. Shakespeare haunts his dreams sometimes. “Like that time you didn’t get my joke about the green light-”

“It was a  _ Great Gatsby  _ reference _ , _ you nerd,” Mingyu says.

“It’s relevant social commentary,” Wonwoo argues, which just proves Mingyu’s point. He puts his things in his bag and unfurls himself with more grace than he should have, given that he just spent God knows how long essentially folded in on himself. “Are you ready to go?”

Mingyu blinks, and remembers that he is sweaty and gross and covered in mud. “I gotta go shower first,” he says apologetically. “I’ll meet you in the courtyard?”

Wonwoo hums, hopping off the bleachers and landing gracefully on his feet. Mingyu quickly retracts the hand he extended instinctively to help him. “Hurry,” is all he says. “It’s cold out here.”

“I’ll be done before you know it,” Mingyu promises.

He makes good on his promise, because he already feels bad that Wonwoo had to wait for him in the cold, and there’s a voice in back of his head telling him that if he takes a second too long Wonwoo won’t be there anymore. He rushes through his post-practice routine, only pausing to say goodbye to Soonyoung, who eyes him suspiciously for being in such a hurry but doesn't say anything about it.

He bursts out of the front doors and into the courtyard, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees a familiar figure leaning against the front gate, silhouetted by the just-setting sun. Wonwoo looks up when he hears him approaching. “You really did hurry,” he says, a little surprised.

Mingyu puffs his chest proudly. “I’m a man of my word,” he declares. Wonwoo just laughs and gestures for them to start walking.

Mingyu quickly finds that this version of his trip home is his favorite (no offense to Minghao or Seokmin). Mingyu shows Wonwoo a song that he ends up liking, bobbing his head subtly to the beat (!!!). He doesn’t complain when the rest of Mingyu’s playlist auto-plays, so they spend the rest of the trip sharing a set of headphones between them. 

Mingyu makes a point of stepping on particularly crunchy-looking leaves. Wonwoo starts pointing out crunchy ones for him to step on, which is just unbearably sweet. 

It’s only when they’re waiting for the bus that Mingyu remembers that weird interaction they had a few weeks prior, Wonwoo’s confusing reaction. “Sorry,” he says, before he forgets again. “For what I said a few weeks ago. About the way you look.”

Wonwoo blinks at him, confused, before recognition dawns in his eyes. “Oh, that. Don’t apologize. It wasn’t your fault.”

It’s Mingyu’s turn to feel confused. “But I made you sad.”

Wonwoo laughs. “I wasn’t  _ sad _ , you melodramatic ass,” he clarifies, poking Mingyu in the side. “And either way, it wasn’t because of you. Seriously, Mingyu. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Mingyu huffs, placated. “Okay,” he says, at a loss for words in the face of Wonwoo’s easy dismissal. Fortunately, the bus arrives at that precise moment, providing a physical opportunity for them to switch topics; Mingyu takes it, babbling some convoluted, long-winded spiel about how Chan absolutely destroyed Seungkwan with a one-liner during lunch. His effort is worth it in the end, though, because he gets to see that coveted nose-scrunch as Wonwoo laughs.

_ My favorite _ , he thinks to himself.

\--

The shit-eating grin that breaks across Seokmin’s face when he sees Mingyu the next morning is honestly terrifying. Mingyu is starting to develop irrational fears about which of his darkest secrets have been exposed (most of them revolve around him singing IU in the shower) when Seokmin drags him behind the group, leaving Minghao and Wonwoo to walk ahead.

“So Wonwoo came home an hour after he told us he would yesterday,” he says. “And I have a feeling you know why.”

Mingyu pales. He was so caught up in the glow of Wonwoo's company that the logistics of it, of why and how Wonwoo stayed after school for two full hours, completely slipped his mind. “Uh,” is all he manages to show for it.

“Okay, well, I know why,” Seokmin relents. “You’re a lucky man, Kim Mingyu.”

Mingyu almost says,  _ I know _ , which is ridiculously cheesy and definitely  _ not _ befitting a normal relationship with his childhood best friend’s brother. Instead, he says, “why?”

Seokmin shrugs. “Wonwoo hates getting cold. He must really like you if he sat outside for an hour in yesterday’s weather. He wouldn’t even do that for me,” he whines, and in the blink of an eye the extremely perceptive, mischievous Seokmin is gone, replaced by regular childish, outlandish Seokmin. “Ugh, Mingyu, stop stealing my brother.” 

Mingyu laughs brightly, his heart full to bursting. He doesn’t take his eyes off Wonwoo the entire way there.

\--

Mingyu learns that Wonwoo has chess club and literature club on the same days he has practice, a coincidence that he counts as the deities’ way of apologizing for giving him a complete lack of motor coordination. Wonwoo complains every time about having to wait the full hour between the end of his club meeting and Mingyu’s practice, but he’s always there without fail, occupying the same spot at the edge of the bleachers. 

Their playlists start blending together from how often they recommend songs to each other. Mingyu starts carrying around heat packs in his gym bag in case Wonwoo forgets to bring one. He doesn’t ask how Wonwoo knew he had soccer practice, or why he decided Mingyu’s company was better than being alone. He figures it’s better not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

\--

It’s their first game of the season, and of  _ course _ it has to take place on the coldest, dampest day so far. There’s a constant drizzle that soaks Mingyu to the bone within seconds, a chill that sinks its teeth into his flesh and makes him curl in on himself. 

At least it’s a home game, and he got to skip fourth period. Mingyu repeatedly reminds himself of this every time he slips on the rain-covered grass during warmups, the wetness sucking all the remaining warmth out of his body. When the coach calls the team in for a huddle, everyone crowds in just a little closer, desperate for body heat.

The coach finishes with his part, and then it's the captain's turn. The captain - an intimidatingly buff senior named Baekho - looks around the circle and grins. “I’ll buy dinner for whoever scores today,” he says.

He’s met with a resounding cheer. Mingyu smiles to himself as he jogs onto the field.

\--

Mingyu only plays for the last half of the game, but he gets a pretty good assist in, which earns him hair ruffles from Baekho and Soonyoung so aggressive he fears for his scalp. They win, too, which is pretty great.

During the post-game huddle, the coach congratulates them, reminds them of next week’s practice, and then dismisses them, telling them to get their well-deserved rest with an almost fatherly smile on his face. Mingyu feels loose and happy as he makes his way to the bleachers, feet moving through sheer force of habit.

“Good job,” Wonwoo says when Mingyu is within earshot. Mingyu notes the absence of a textbook on his lap with a strange giddiness - was Wonwoo actually paying attention to the entire game? “I mean, I have no idea how soccer works, but you looked pretty cool out there.”

Mingyu beams. “Thanks! I felt pretty cool, too. Did you see my assist?”

“Oh, no, I got bored halfway through,” Wonwoo jokes. “The cheers were pretty loud, though.”

“Wow, very supportive,” Mingyu huffs, crossing his arms over his chest, but he’s smiling. “I think I have about five minutes before the adrenaline wears off and I start freezing again, so I’ll see you in the courtyard?”

“Don’t be late,” Wonwoo says.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” is Mingyu’s reply.

\--

His locker room experience, predictably, consists entirely of teammates slapping each other’s backs and/or asses and taunting Baekho about that free dinner promise. He ducks out before he gets roped in, although Soonyoung lands a good smack on his lower back before he leaves.

It somehow got colder in the fifteen minutes he was in the shower, a fact that announces itself with fanfare the second he steps outside. His body heat hasn’t been given enough time to warm up the inside of the windbreaker he threw on, so all he feels is cold fabric against his damp skin as he makes his way across the courtyard, towards that familiar figure, teeth gritted.

The days have made quick work of shortening. The sky is blue-black, the streetlamps are already lit, and Wonwoo, with his pale skin and dark clothes, stands out like a beacon. He looks up, as he always does, when he hears Mingyu approaching. “Let’s go home,” he says quietly.

Mingyu beams at him. “Yeah.”

\--

Mingyu spends the whole walk to the bus stop rambling about the game. They have a little more time than usual before the next bus, and Mingyu fills up that space easily by gushing about particularly good plays, the feeling of the last goal, and  _ you should’ve seen my assist, Wonwoo, I know you have no idea what that means but it was so good! _

He’s dimly aware that he is probably talking way too much, giddiness making the words tumble out of his mouth almost as fast as they’re rushing through his brain. But Wonwoo is smiling as he listens, hunched in a little against the wind. His hands, covered by his sleeves as usual, rest in his lap. Mingyu feels the absurd urge to hold them.

A strong gust of wind blows its way through the open end of the bus shelter, knocking the hood of his windbreaker off his head. Silently, almost absentmindedly, Wonwoo pulls a hand out of its sleeve cocoon to pull the hood back up, his thin wrist taking up Mingyu’s entire field of view as he smooths the edge down. 

Mingyu watches as Wonwoo brings his hand back down, expression completely neutral. His hand is shaking,  _ hard _ , the motion hidden by the force with which he’s gripping the sleeves of his sweater. Worry blooms in Mingyu’s chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

Wonwoo looks confused, then surprised, then amused. “Oh, the tremors? I’ve always had them,” he explains, holding a hand up to demonstrate. Without anything to hold onto, his hand is quivering so hard it’s a wonder he managed to get Mingyu’s hood on as fast as he did. “It gets worse when I’m cold, and today’s weather is-” he gestures towards their surroundings, before dropping his hand back in his lap “-so.”

Ah, Mingyu thinks. Hence his aversion. “Do you still have the heat pack I gave you?”

“It got cold,” Wonwoo says, matter-of-fact, even as he curls up tighter. 

Guilt spikes through Mingyu, a ringing  _ why would you do this for me? _ He blurts out the first thing he can think of to even remotely remedy the situation. “My hands are pretty warm,” he distantly hears himself saying, “so I could, uh, hold your… hand?”

The second he processes what he’s just said, he cringes so hard he might actually break a bone. The silence that Wonwoo answers him with makes everything a thousand times worse, oh God, why wasn’t he born with a functional brain-to-mouth filter? Holding hands? What the hell?

His internal freak-out is so deafening he barely catches the tail end of Wonwoo’s mumbled reply. “Sorry, what was that?” he asks, a little desperately.

“I said sure,” Wonwoo says. He looks annoyed when Mingyu looks at him, brow furrowed, his high cheekbones a slightly darker shade of pink. He looks annoyed, but also - embarrassed?

“Uh,” is Mingyu’s incoherent reply.

Wonwoo just stares at him, unblinking, merciless as he watches Mingyu flop around like a fish out of water. “Are you okay,” he says flatly. 

“Yeah, um, yeah,” Mingyu says, and scrambles to get his nerves under control as he reaches out hesitantly, hand hovering awkwardly above Wonwoo’s lap. “Um, here- here you… go?”

“Thanks for the offering,” Wonwoo says in the same flat voice, but he looks paradoxically amused as he pulls his sleeve down and turns his hand palm-up. The pale skin there glows yellow under the streetlamp, and Mingyu panics.

But he offered, and guilt always overpowers his fight or flight instinct, so he slots his fingers into the spaces between Wonwoo’s and tries not to die from heart failure at the ripe old age of sixteen. 

Wonwoo’s hands are, obviously, ice-cold, but his skin is soft, and his fingers are thin where they curl around the back of Mingyu’s hand. Without thinking, Mingyu reaches over and takes his other hand, too, angling his body towards Wonwoo’s so he can reach across his lap. They sit like that until the bus arrives a few minutes later, Mingyu shielding Wonwoo from the cold. 

Wonwoo lets go of Mingyu’s hands as they board the bus and pay their fare. When they say goodbye to each other, his hand, when he waves, is steady.

\--

The next morning, nothing about Wonwoo’s behavior has changed. He talks to Seokmin quietly, their conversation punctuated by an occasional burst of laughter, not even sparing a single glance back at Mingyu. Which is infuriating, because Mingyu can’t seem to stop looking at him. 

More specifically, at his hands.  Now that he’s noticed them, his brain has apparently made it its personal mission to notice  _ everything _ about them. His thin wrists and thinner fingers, his bony knuckles, the grace with which they move, all sit themselves down in the center of Mingyu’s mind, carelessly pushing everything else out of the way. He occasionally finds himself rubbing the back of his own hand, trying to recreate the feeling of Wonwoo’s fingers between his.

He feels mushy and pathetic. It’s just holding hands, for God’s sake. Mingyu, who has never been shy about skinship, should not be freaking out this much. 

They part ways as usual in the front foyer of the school, Minghao and Mingyu to their locker, Wonwoo and Seokmin to theirs. “See you,” Wonwoo tells him, separate from the others, loud in the sea of students, before walking away. Mingyu is left blinking in the aftermath of his smile, feeling overwhelmed.

\--

At the end of Calculus, Soonyoung turns to him and says, “Baekho’s treating all of us to lunch today. Meet me at my locker?”

Mingyu, a self-identified social butterfly (Minghao prefers the term ‘friendship hoe’, but that’s not important), brightens at the invitation. “I’ll be there,” he promises.

Soonyoung beams at him. “Great!”

_ Not _ great, Mingyu finds out eventually.

\--

After Literature, Mingyu parts ways with Minghao and Seokmin and makes his way to Soonyoung’s locker, which has invariably been located next to the dance studio for the past four years. He brings his lunch, because he made  _ really _ good kimchi fried rice last night and he’s been looking forward to it all morning.

“I didn’t score, so I can’t ask for a free meal,” Mingyu explains when Soonyoung raises an eyebrow. “Besides, I like my own cooking.”

“Nah, Baekho would buy you lunch regardless,” Soonyoung dismisses. “He's nice that way.”

Mingyu laughs. “Is he our captain or is he our dad?”

Soonyoung shrugs, linking his arm with Mingyu’s as he steers him through the hallways and to the courtyard, where the rest of the team has already gathered. “I just think he watches too much sports anime.”

“I do  _ not _ ,” Baekho calls out to Soonyoung, directing the group’s attention to their arrival. The customary bro handshakes and slaps on the back are exchanged, and then they set off in the direction of the field, chatting in groups of twos and threes. 

It’s warmer than it was yesterday - the sky is a clear blue, the sun is bright, and the air is still. Mingyu sweats under his tasteful knit V-neck. Still, he’s a little surprised to see two familiar figures eating lunch on the bleachers, one of them chatting away animatedly, the other chewing and nodding in silence.

“Wonwoo! Junhui!” he calls out to them, beaming, waving with maybe a little more enthusiasm than is warranted. It has nothing to do with the fact that Wonwoo’s actually wearing jeans today, a light blue and ripped at the knees. 

They turn towards him in unison. Junhui waves back, returning his enthusiasm, while Wonwoo just pushes his glasses up his nose and smiles. Mingyu smiles so hard his face starts to hurt.

Near him, towards the middle of the group, someone tells a joke he’s too distracted to hear. But it must’ve been a really good one, because everyone around him bursts into laughter, jolting him out of his Wonwoo-focused tunnel vision. He turns in confusion, but he’s already missed the punchline, so he turns back to the bleachers.

He’s missed something else there, too. Because Wonwoo isn’t looking at him anymore, and his expression has hardened to stone, all traces of his previous warmth gone. Junhui’s hand hangs limply in the air, mid-wave, smile faltering. Mingyu makes a confused face at him. He shakes his head and turns to talk to Wonwoo, considerably more subdued than before.

Mingyu’s heart skids through concrete. Unfocused, his feet trip over thin air. He’s saved from face-planting into the grass by a firm hand on his arm, pulling him upright - Soonyoung, joking, “be careful! You could wipe someone out with those long-ass limbs.”

Mingyu doesn’t laugh. Soonyoung frowns at him, ducking to meet his downcast gaze. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?”

_ No _ , Mingyu wants to tell him, because he’s just made Wonwoo sad again, and he’s not anywhere closer to knowing why, and he shouldn’t have expected anything different. But Soonyoung, who invited him on this outing and broke off from a larger conversation to check up on him, shouldn’t have to hear that. So he musters the most genuine smile he can and says, “of course. I’m very graceful and coordinated.”

Soonyoung points at him threateningly. “You’re lucky you’re cute,” he says, but he looks at least half-convinced as he turns back to join his group, leaving Mingyu alone with his thoughts.

His thoughts, which at this point are just self-berating variations of:  _ of course _ . Of course he still doesn’t know anything about Wonwoo. Of course walking home together and listening to each other’s music and holding hands didn’t mean anything. Of course Wonwoo is still so far away, as far as five years can take you and getting farther with each passing moment.

Of course. Of course. Of course. Mingyu keeps his eyes focused on the grass, alone in the crowd of people.

\--

On the walk home that day, Wonwoo purposely avoids him, walking several paces ahead by himself. Minghao and Seokmin exchange confused looks; Mingyu just shrugs, which is the most truthful answer he can give. He wonders if Wonwoo will show up to practice tomorrow.

\--

He doesn’t.

Despite the image he’s cultivated, Mingyu isn’t actually completely obtuse - he doesn’t make excuses about Wonwoo being late, being sick, being busy. He just runs through his regular post-practice routine with a numb efficiency and goes home alone. His headphones stay in his pocket, the wind biting at his ears.

\--

His morning trip to school usually happens like this - the four of them meet at the major intersection next to their neighborhood, and then they’ll walk to the bus stop and take the bus together. The morning after Mingyu goes home from practice alone, Seokmin and Wonwoo show up at the last possible minute. Mingyu sees Wonwoo round the corner, in a black tracksuit zipped up against the wind, and feels his entire body thrum in time with his heartbeat.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately depending on how things turn out, Minghao immediately pulls Seokmin aside to talk about a project in their shared 4th period class, leaving Mingyu behind. With Wonwoo, of course, who is looking steadily ahead.

Mingyu, in spite of all his boundless extroversion, has no idea how to broach the topic - he barely even knows what the topic is. He’s walking through a field of landmines blindfolded, reaching for an unknown destination. So he says the one thing he knows, which is, “I missed you yesterday.”

He throws the line out there with no idea what the consequences will be, with no hope for any particular response. Still, he gets the last thing he wanted: Wonwoo scoffs, says “sure,” and then falls silent.

What does that even  _ mean? _ Mingyu wants to scream, not at Wonwoo, maybe a little at himself, mostly up into the cosmos. Because two days ago he was holding Wonwoo’s hand in a bus shelter, he was untangling the headphones dangling between them, he was basking in the glow of Wonwoo’s smile. And now everything is wrong, and he has no idea how to make it right.

He’s so, so frustrated, even when there’s nothing to be frustrated at except this cruel twist of fate. “I  _ did _ ,” he insists, turning to look at Wonwoo. Wonwoo keeps his eyes on the road ahead. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“Was it a dare?” Wonwoo asks quietly, scathingly. “What did you get out of it? A drink? A free meal?”

It’s like trying to understand a foreign language, with nothing but a dictionary with half its pages ripped out. Mingyu frowns, his thoughts running laps in his mind, fast enough to make him dizzy but not fast enough to make him understand. “What are you talking about?”

Any possible answer Wonwoo could’ve given is cut off when they catch up to Seokmin and Minghao at the bus stop, giving him a physical reason to ignore Mingyu. And ignoring Mingyu is exactly what he does, crowding close to the other end of the shelter and putting his headphones in. Mingyu stands there, fingernails digging crescents into his palms, half wishing he never said anything at all. 

Five years is a long, long time, he supposes.

\--

Junhui still talks to him in Calc, but it’s the more subdued version of him that Mingyu saw on the bleachers that day - gone are the cheesy puns, the weird one-liners, the constant dancing. Junhui doesn’t give him high fives or ruffle his hair or punch him in the shoulder anymore. It’s like taking a picture of the night sky and realizing you can’t see any of the stars.

\--

About a week passes like this - Mingyu goes home from practice alone, and Wonwoo walks in front of him in the mornings - before Minghao sits down in front of their locker, his lunchbox propped open on his lap, and says, “so are you going to tell us what happened?”

Mingyu blinks at him, slowly sinking onto the floor. “What happened with what?”

Minghao shrugs, taking his chopsticks out of their container and digging into his rice. “You and Wonwoo. I thought you guys were friends.”

At the mention of Wonwoo’s name, Mingyu’s heart drops, and his appetite goes with it. He sets his lunch down. “That’s what I thought too,” he mumbles.

“Awwwww,” Seokmin says, crawling over from Minghao’s other side to give him a hug. Now that Mingyu thinks about it, Seokmin has stayed surprisingly steadfast throughout this whole ordeal, despite being caught between his brother and his best friend. “So you don’t know what’s going on either?”

Something inside Mingyu breaks at Seokmin’s words. “No,” he almost wails, burrowing into Seokmin’s shoulder. The words tumble out of his mouth, impossible to withhold after a week of restraint. “I held his hand and now he hates me and I don’t know what I did wrong, I don’t know anything at all, and I  _ hate  _ taking the bus home alone.”

Distantly, he knows he’s not making any sense. But Seokmin, in his consistent goodness, doesn’t judge him, just rubs his back while he half-cries. There’s another hand patting his head - Minghao, probably. 

“I think Junhui’s mad at me too,” Mingyu sniffles.

The hand on his back pauses. “Wait.” Seokmin pushes him away gently, holding him by the shoulders at arm’s length. His eyes are serious but not unkind as he says, “both of them are mad at you for the same thing?”

Mingyu blinks at him. “I think so?” He recounts everything he remembers - waving, the laughter, turning back and seeing everything change. As he speaks, Seokmin’s eyes slowly light up with understanding.

Seokmin doesn’t share his epiphany with the class, though. He just says, “Mingyu, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I don’t think this is about you.”

Mingyu blinks again, harder, like if he closes and opens his eyes enough times he’ll suddenly gain the ability to understand. He glances at Minghao, who offers a shrug in response and goes back to eating his lunch, clearly satisfied with the role he played in this intervention. He looks back at Seokmin. “Huh?”

“Just- you should be hearing this from Wonwoo,” Seokmin says gently, as if Mingyu hasn’t been trying and failing to hear anything from Wonwoo for the past week. “He may be stubborn but he’s not an asshole. Just go talk to him.”

Mingyu rubs his eyes with the sleeve of his blazer. The material scratches at his eyelids, makes his eyes sting when he opens them again. “Right,” he mumbles. “Thanks, Seokmin.”

How the hell is he going to ‘go talk to him’?


	4. Chapter 4

Mingyu skips practice.

To clarify - he doesn’t skip _all_ of practice, because he hasn’t established a strong enough presence on the team to do that yet, and also he would just feel bad. But he asks to leave halfway through, telling the coach something about a doctor’s appointment that probably sounds super suspicious but is vague enough that he can’t call him out for it. 

He takes a shower and changes, and then heads straight for the notice board at the front of the school, which luckily for him still has last month’s club posters tacked up in the corners. One poster, a deep red background printed with a badly bleeding color printer, advertises chess club meetings once a week on Tuesdays, in - coincidentally, or maybe ironically - Mingyu’s Calc classroom.

He arrives just in time for the end of the meeting, the sound of chatter and chairs scraping muffled behind the closed door. He steps aside, almost plastering himself against an adjacent wall as the door opens and the club members pour out. Some of them give him weird looks as they pass. His heart thuds dully in his chest, fraught with tension and nerves.

The feeling intensifies when Wonwoo finally emerges from the classroom, talking quietly to a shorter girl with the same round glasses as him. He immediately notices Mingyu’s presence, eyes flickering over to where Mingyu’s standing for a brief but solid moment. His expression hardens, and he turns away, walking with the girl to the end of the hall and disappearing into a stairwell.

Mingyu looks down at his feet, ashamed, forced to confront the fact that he planned for absolutely nothing past making it here. Of course there was a good chance that Wonwoo would just ignore him - none of his behavior for the past week suggests the opposite.

But Mingyu wants to talk to him. And he, like the true dumbass he is, will be as annoying as possible until they at least start a conversation. Whatever happens after that is up to fate and also Wonwoo, he supposes. 

“What are you doing here?”

Speak of the devil. Mingyu looks up. Wonwoo looks tired; Seokmin mentioned that he tends to stay up until odd hours doing homework or playing video games. He looks leaner, too, than he did in the summer, and pale now that the sun’s rarely out. Mingyu’s chest twists with worry. 

But the part of his appearance that overtakes all of that is the cold impassiveness on his face that Mingyu has grown to dread. It means that the Wonwoo he knows is locked away for the time being, beneath layers of ice and assumptions about what Mingyu’s said before he even says it. And maybe this should make Mingyu think more about what he says next, but he hasn’t been the subject of Wonwoo’s undivided attention for so long that all he can blurt out is: “I miss you.”

Wonwoo’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second before shuttering again. “Stop,” he says, meeting Mingyu’s gaze head-on, effectively halting any possibility of misinterpretation. “You got what you wanted. Please leave me alone.”

“Wonwoo, _please_ ,” and it really does sound like a plea to Mingyu’s ears, his fumbling desperation, “I thought- I thought we were friends.”

“Just face it, Mingyu,” and then Wonwoo solidifies what Mingyu was dreading all along, “you don’t know anything about me. And clearly, I don’t know anything about you either. This was a mistake.”

And then Wonwoo - Wonwoo leaves. No goodbye, no room for misunderstandings. Just a scathing confirmation of Mingyu’s greatest fear, that the distance between them created by time and secrecy has become impossible to bridge. That they’ll always be like this, Wonwoo shielding his hurt, Mingyu in painful ignorance. 

_This was a mistake._ Of course it was. Why was he expecting anything different?

His eyes burn. He thinks that maybe he’s taking the whole ‘burning wreck’ metaphor a little too far, but then he realizes that it’s a damp burning - he’s crying. Mingyu is sixteen, and he’s crying because his childhood best friend’s brother left him alone in a hallway.

Of course all of it was a mistake. Mingyu hides his face in the sleeve of his windbreaker, hoping no one sees him frantically wiping at his eyes.

And then, because this day is just getting worse and worse by the minute, there’s a hand on his shoulder. “Yo Mingyu, have you seen Wonwoo?”

It’s Junhui, or whatever version of Junhui Mingyu’s friends with now, after he ruined everything. Mingyu musters the brightest smile he can afford and looks up into Junhui’s eyes. “Yeah, he went that way,” he says, pointing down the hallway. Hopefully if his answers are curt enough, Junhui will leave soon - he probably doesn’t enjoy Mingyu’s company that much anymore, anyways.

Mingyu’s estimations are wrong yet again. This must be a record, even for someone as notoriously unlucky as him. Junhui frowns and puts a hand on his arm, pointing at his eyes, where tears are no doubt collecting again. “Are you crying?”

For some reason, that makes Mingyu’s valiantly held-back tears spill over. “No,” he mumbles, feeling hopelessly pathetic as he rubs at his eyes. “I’m fine. Sorry.”

“Hey, wait, hold on.” Junhui steers him around a corner and into a stairwell, where he sits him down at the base of the stairs. Once seated, Junhui roots through his bag and pulls out a small packet of wet wipes, which he offers to Mingyu. Mingyu wipes at his face as Junhui asks, “did Wonwoo say something to you?”

Mingyu freezes in his tracks. “We just talked,” he half-lies, hoping Junhui isn’t as absurdly astute as Minghao. “I’m not, um. Nothing happened.”

Junhui sighs. There’s a long pause, and when he speaks again, it’s with the firm resolve of someone who’s just made a difficult decision. “Would you like to talk about what happened?” he says carefully.

Mingyu looks up at him, surprised. The person he sees almost feels like the Junhui he knew last week, before everything went wrong - kind, a little awkward, achingly genuine. His brows are furrowed and he’s fiddling aggressively, but he’s looking at Mingyu, straightforward. 

Mingyu bursts into tears again.

“Oh no, oh no, don’t do that,” Junhui says, sounding a little panicked. He wraps an arm around Mingyu’s shoulders and shoves more wet wipes into his hands as Mingyu buries his face in his hands for what must be the fourth or fifth time in the past ten minutes. 

Part of him wants to run away, to go home and cry alone - Junhui shouldn’t be saddled with him, when he’s been reduced to nothing but a large emotional puddle. The other part of him, though, wants to talk to someone, _anyone_ , and he owes Junhui an honest conversation. “I miss you,” he says for the second time today, because he means it, because he’s been feeling it for a week. “I miss you, and I miss Wonwoo, and you’re acting weird and Wonwoo’s not talking to me and I don’t know why. I’m sorry, I know I did something wrong, I just- I don’t-”

“Hey, hey, wait,” Junhui says soothingly, his voice getting a little louder. “Hey, wait, Mingyu - what are you talking about?”

Mingyu sits upright, looking at him. The confusion on Junhui’s face mirrors what he’s feeling right now, because - he didn’t think he was _this_ bad at reading social cues. Surely Junhui knows something he doesn’t, or else he wouldn’t have started this whole conversation, right? “I- I waved at you that one time, remember?” he says, just to confirm, his crying momentarily forgotten.

“Yeah,” Junhui confirms, frowning. “Yeah. And then your friends laughed.”

Mingyu is for _sure_ going to get wrinkles in his forehead. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“That’s,” Junhui looks a little faint. Mingyu almost wants to offer him a wet wipe. “That’s not related to anything?”

Slowly, Mingyu says, “they were laughing because someone in the group told a joke. I didn’t hear it, because I was waving at you. Why- oof!”

The rest of his sentence is cut off by Junhui, who launches himself at Mingyu and wraps him in a hug so tight that Mingyu can feel his shoulder blades popping. Almost reflexively, he reaches up to pat Junhui’s back, a little hesitant. 

After a few seconds of hugging awkwardly on the stairs, swaying slightly back and forth, Junhui pulls away and holds Mingyu’s face in his hands. Mingyu feels like a kid, his cheeks squished up into his eyes. “Mingyu,” Junhui says very seriously, “ _I am so sorry_.”

“Huh,” Mingyu says. “Wait, what?”

Junhui lets go of his face in favor of pulling him into another hug. Mingyu blinks, suddenly finding himself at the receiving end of an apology he was fully prepared to give. “I’m so sorry, I’ve been such a dick to you,” Junhui says next to his ear. “I thought- I didn’t think you were that type of person, and I was right, I’m so sorry I ever doubted you.” He pulls away again, and his eyes are wide and bright. “Forgive me?”

Mingyu stares back at Junhui. The tear tracks on his face are completely dried up. In front of him is the Junhui he’s been searching for, and he’s hit with such an overwhelming sense of relief that everything else ceases to matter. “I forgive you,” he says. And he does. He’s only known him for about a month, but he’s sure that Junhui is the farthest away from someone who would give an empty apology. “So are… are we okay?”

Junhui beams at him. Mingyu is seized with joy. “More than okay,” he says. “Now,” he pushes himself to his feet and plants his hands on his hips, “I’m going to go yell at Wonwoo. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Mingyu starts, “wait, why-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Junhui dismisses, waving a hand around. He smiles at Mingyu, and pulls him into another hug. “I really am sorry.” He pulls away and pinches Mingyu’s cheek between his thumb and forefinger. “You are the cutest boy ever. Except me, obviously. Wonwoo’s lucky to have us both, isn’t he?”

He walks away without waiting for an answer. Mingyu rubs his cheek, which is stinging from the apparent strength in Junhui’s fingers. He’s still holding the pack of wet wipes. “Huh?” he mumbles.

\--

On the way home, Mingyu reaches the conclusion that Junhui might actually be a cryptid. 

Every time he tries to decipher what he said in the stairwell, he’s left a little more confused. Why did he apologize? Why is he yelling at Wonwoo? Why does Wonwoo “have” Mingyu?

Mingyu decides, unlocking the door to his house, that he’s just not going to think about it. The important thing is that they’re friends again, and that Junhui is no longer a weird, strained version of himself. As for Wonwoo - he figures he’ll have to wait for tomorrow, and see what kind of cryptid magic Junhui worked. There’s no use in thinking about it now, especially when he’s got a mountain of homework to do. 

About half an hour later, he’s making his way downstairs to refill his water when the doorbell rings. Which is weird - his mom doesn’t get home until an hour later, and they don’t usually get deliveries at this time. Mingyu decides against grabbing a kitchen knife to defend himself, but sets his glass down and approaches the door with caution.

He unlocks the door slowly, and opens the door slowly. The lights on his porch are almost blinding compared to the darkness in his house, and he squints in discomfort, shielding his eyes with his hand.

It’s Wonwoo.

Mingyu is so glad he had the foresight to put his glass down, because he definitely would’ve dropped it. Or maybe he shouldn’t be glad, because maybe he accidentally fell asleep while studying and this is just a very realistic, very vivid dream. Is this what cinematic parallels are? Is he living in a movie?

Wonwoo’s wearing a puffy jacket, and his shoulders are hunched against the cold. A gust of wind blows into Mingyu’s house. Mingyu registers, distantly, that he’s barefoot. 

“Wonwoo,” he says faintly. Moving out of reflex and a lifetime of internalized cultural customs, he steps back and opens the door a little wider. “Uh, come in. It’s pretty cold out there.”

Wonwoo looks surprised at the invitation. Under the harsh white light illuminating Mingyu’s porch, he looks even more tired than he did at school, shadows collecting under his eyes. He steps into Mingyu’s house silently, moving out of the way when Mingyu goes to close and lock the door.

Mingyu realizes that this is the first time Wonwoo’s ever been inside his house. He considers it a blessing that the lights in the living room are off, because there’s an embarrassing pile of halfheartedly-bought popular YA romance novels on the coffee table that he’d rather Wonwoo not see. 

Wonwoo still hasn’t said anything. Mingyu’s always been a little uncomfortable with silence, so he says the first thing he can think of in an attempt to fill it: “um, so do you want something to drink? I don’t have much but I think we have, um, tea? Uh, and water, so if you want…”

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo starts, and it’s so different from the cold, nearly spiteful Wonwoo from a couple hours ago that Mingyu feels himself go weak in the knees. Wonwoo isn’t looking him in the eyes. “Tell me what happened when you saw us on the bleachers.”

Mingyu swallows. Wonwoo’s hands are in his pockets. Mingyu wonders if they’re shaking, feels the absurd urge to hold them. 

Slowly, he repeats what he told Junhui, but quieter and more careful. He saw them; he waved; he caught the tail end of a joke someone else told, but missed the punchline. A detail he’s fairly sure is unrelated, but when he finishes with, “I didn’t hear the joke,” Wonwoo’s eyes snap up to meet his.

“You didn’t?” he echoes quietly, half a question, half a - what? Wonwoo has always been extremely good at hiding his emotions, and the darkness and Mingyu’s lingering confusion over the whole thing don’t help. Regardless, Mingyu shakes his head. 

And Wonwoo just - _deflates_ . His shoulders sag, his head drops, his hands come up to rub at his eyes. _Cinematic parallels,_ Mingyu’s awful, awful brain shouts at him. Mingyu tells it to shut up. 

“Fuck,” Wonwoo mumbles, barely audible. Mingyu takes an instinctive step forward, a little worried at how defeated he looks. A little clearer: “Fuck, Mingyu, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mingyu says, still operating on pure instinct. He means it. Maybe he should be a little upset that Wonwoo basically ignored him for a week with no explanation, and brushed off all his attempts to communicate, but all he finds himself focusing on is that Wonwoo is _here_ , in his home. Wonwoo is here, talking to him, and he doesn’t hate him anymore. That’s all that really matters. So Mingyu repeats, “It’s okay,” and means it.

Wonwoo looks up at him, scanning his face, searching for something unknown. He evidently doesn’t find what he was expecting, because his eyes widen in surprise. “Are you,” he starts, swallows, starts again, “are you sure?”

Mingyu doesn’t take time to think about it, because he already knows the answer. “Pretty sure,” he says, smiling.

Wonwoo looks at him like he’s stupid. “You still want to be friends with me?” he asks slowly, like he’s prompting Mingyu to reconsider.

Unfortunately for him, Mingyu’s brain runs on a one-way track with no braking mechanism. “Ha!” he shouts, pointing at Wonwoo triumphantly, who startles at the burst of noise. “So you admit that we’re friends!”

“ _That’s_ your takeaway from this?” Wonwoo asks, incredulous but also, maybe, a little relieved. 

“It’s what I care about,” Mingyu says, bouncing on the balls of his feet, feeling inexplicably giddy. Well - maybe there is an explanation, and maybe it’s standing right in front of him, still in his winter jacket, hands in his pockets. “I missed you,” he says happily, a phrase he’s repeated too many times to count. But it’s different, this time. 

Wonwoo smiles, warm and real. “I missed you, too,” he says quietly.

If Mingyu were the corny type, he’d liken the feeling in his chest to a burst of sunlight through heavy cloud cover. Well - he is the corny type, but he’s pretty sure Wonwoo wouldn’t appreciate his metaphors. So he just reaches a hand out, pinky extended. “Promise?”

Wonwoo laughs. “What, are we in elementary school?”

Mingyu huffs. “Just do it,” he says. “Or else I’m gonna think you didn’t mean it.”

Wonwoo’s smile falters. Silently, he takes his hand out of his coat pocket and curls his pinky around Mingyu’s, making a small sound of surprise when Mingyu twists their hands around to press their thumbs together. “Hey, that wasn’t a part of the deal,” he protests. He doesn’t pull his hand away. “I could sue you for fraud, you know.”

“Yeah, but you won’t,” Mingyu says triumphantly. “Because I’m your friend, and you can’t sue your friends for fraud. That breaks, like, bro code or something.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what bro code is,” Wonwoo points out. 

They’ve fallen back into their old rhythm. The feeling floods Mingyu with relief. He realizes that Wonwoo’s hand is trembling slightly and also freezing cold, despite the fact that he’s already been in Mingyu’s well-heated home for a good ten minutes.

“Oh, are you cold? I can make you some tea,” he offers, clasping Wonwoo’s hand between both of his. “What kind do you prefer?”

Wonwoo laughs quietly, pulling his hand out from between Mingyu’s. Mingyu tries not to feel unreasonably hurt over the gesture. “It’s not a big deal,” he says, “I’m always cold. Seriously, Mingyu, don’t worry.”

“Of course I’m going to worry,” Mingyu insists. “You never take care of yourself.” He moves to stand behind Wonwoo and grabs him by the shoulders, steering him into the kitchen and sitting him at one of the stools pulled up to the counter. “Seokmin tells me you stay up every night playing video games,” he adds as he rummages through a cupboard for tea leaves.

“Not _every_ night,” Wonwoo protests. “Only when I’m playing a game with a good story.”

Mingyu puts the kettle on the stove and turns to face Wonwoo, one eyebrow raised. “And how often is that?”

“Uh,” is Wonwoo’s very coherent response. 

Eloquent, thoughtful Wonwoo, reduced to a non-answer? This may be Mingyu’s greatest triumph yet. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he says victoriously. “Seriously,” he adds, placing a saucer and mug on the counter in front of Wonwoo, “you look tired.” He measures out a spoonful of tea leaves and drops it into the mug. “You should take care of yourself. Sugar?”

“No, thanks,” Wonwoo declines. “And I _do_ take care of myself. Don’t listen to Seokmin, he’s a liar.” He’s taken his jacket off, draping it over his lap, and his fingers are drumming on the countertop. The rest of the house is dark save for the lights directly overhead, bathing his face in a golden glow. 

The kettle whistles. Mingyu tears his eyes away from Wonwoo’s and turns to grab it, just barely avoiding knocking the entire thing over with an elbow and burning his skin off. “Well, at least you’re not as skinny as you were in sixth grade,” he comments, pouring the water into the mug. “Your wrists were, like, half the size of mine.” He drops a spoon into the mug with a flourish. “Enjoy.”

Wonwoo laughs, pulling his sleeves over his hands so he can hold onto the mug. It’s unbelievably soft and domestic, and Mingyu almost misses it when he says, “Believe it or not, five years _is_ a lot of time for someone to change.” He looks pointedly at Mingyu. “I figured you would know that already.”

Mingyu grins and turns around to prepare a mug of tea for himself, but not before winking at Wonwoo over his shoulder. “That’s a weird way to call me hot, but I’ll take the compliment.”

“I was talking about how your personality became ten times shittier, idiot,” Wonwoo rebuts scathingly. His voice is soft, though, and he’s smiling when Mingyu turns around, staring into the contents of his over-stirred tea like he can read the leaves.

“Hey, rude,” Mingyu says, taking a seat at the counter across from him. “You didn’t get any nicer, either.” That’s a lie - Wonwoo is equally as kind as he was back then, maybe even kinder. It’s just that his ways of expressing it have changed, burying that warm goodness under multiple protective layers so that he feels cold to the touch on the outside.

Mingyu feels the warmth, though, when Wonwoo lets out a quiet chuckle and looks up at him, eyes sparkling with mirth and something like nostalgia. The week of coldness leading up to this moment is all but forgotten in Mingyu’s mind; _this_ is all he cares about, smiling at each other across the countertop.

“That’s true,” Wonwoo allows. His smile fades a little, and he looks back down at his mug before asking, quieter, “do you really think we’re that different?”

The question feels loaded, like emotional Russian Roulette. Mingyu’s kind of glad they’re not making eye contact right now.

Of course they're different - he would be blind not to see it, all the ways the past five years have left their mark on the both of them. But it doesn't even matter, because this is Wonwoo he’s talking about. And the Wonwoo who showed up at his door on a cold October evening and the Wonwoo who wrapped his hand while he was crying feel the same, in all the important ways.

“Your heart is the same,” he says. “And I like you the same. Besides, you were kind of a jerk back then, so I’m glad you’re different now.”

There’s a slight pause before Wonwoo looks up at him, mouth twisted into a wry smile. “I thought I ‘didn’t get any nicer’?”

“Never mind, I take all of it back,” Mingyu says promptly. Wonwoo laughs at him, and the tension of the moment fizzles out, the darkness retreating. 

They talk for a few more minutes before Wonwoo glances at the time on the microwave. “I should probably go,” he says. “I have some stuff to do.” He slides off the stool. Mingyu mirrors his movement, and cleans up their mugs while Wonwoo gets ready to leave. 

He’s absolutely, definitely not moving slower than usual, and it’s definitely not because he doesn’t want to see Wonwoo off so soon.

He finds Wonwoo waiting for him at his front door, pulling his shoes on, already bundled up in his jacket. “Sorry for keeping you here for so long,” Mingyu says.

“What are you apologizing for?” Wonwoo asks. “If I wanted to leave earlier, I would’ve.” Which, true to Jeon Wonwoo fashion, is incredibly confusing and could probably be said in fewer words. He straightens and looks Mingyu in the eye. “Thank you,” he says openly, sincerely. Mingyu nearly screams. “And sorry, again. Really.”

“And it’s okay, again. Really,” Mingyu echoes, teasing. Wonwoo rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling anyways. “You don’t have to keep apologizing.”

Wonwoo looks surprised for a second, before his expression reverts back to its extremely intimidating resting state. “Okay,” he agrees, bobbing his head. It’s really cute. Mingyu opens the door for him and follows him outside, where it’s even colder than before. Wonwoo takes a step down the stairs, stops, and turns back towards Mingyu. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, almost hopeful.

Mingyu has so much homework to do, and he’s about an hour behind on all of it, but he really doesn’t want Wonwoo to leave. “Of course,” he says, beaming. “It’s a promise.”

Wonwoo laughs. “Yeah,” he says. He smiles back, quiet, ethereal. He gives a small wave, and leaves.

Mingyu has so much homework to do, he’s about an hour behind on all of it, and soon his mom’s going to come home and he’s going to have to make dinner. Also, he’s still barefoot, and the concrete under his feet has leached all the warmth from his skin. Still, he feels warm and content as he turns and heads back into his home, looking forward to the next day.

\--

The first thing Mingyu says when he sees Wonwoo the next day is, “you stayed up late again, didn’t you?”

Wonwoo’s cheeks, already pink from the cold, immediately go several shades darker. In his peripheral view, Mingyu can spot Minghao and Seokmin whispering furiously to each other before Minghao drags Seokmin away, leaving the two of them alone. 

Seokmin shoots him a thumbs up over his shoulder. Mingyu resists the urge to bury his face in his hands.

“I had homework,” Wonwoo reasons. He motions for them to start walking, so they do, several paces behind Minghao and Seokmin. “You can’t nag at me for having homework.”

Unfortunately, Wonwoo is right. And Mingyu doubly can’t nag at him when he’s pretty sure the reason he got a late start on his homework is because he spent so much time talking to Mingyu. “You still look like a zombie, though,” he says anyways, because he’s worried regardless.

Wonwoo laughs. “An astute observation,” he teases. “There _are_ mirrors in my house, you know.”

Mingyu reaches out and smooths down a strand of hair sticking straight out of the back of Wonwoo’s head. “Do you _use_ them, though?”

Wonwoo pauses. “I’m older than you,” is what he settles on. Mingyu grins.

\--

“So,” Minghao starts as they’re making their way towards their locker, “are you done being gross and sad?”

Mingyu has known Minghao for too long, and is too intimately acquainted with the ways he chooses to express affection, to feel offended. He wraps his arms around Minghao’s torso from the side, leaning his head on Minghao’s shoulder as the latter unlocks the locker. “I’ve never been better,” he says, sing-song.

“Ugh, I forgot that you’re also gross when you’re happy,” Minghao complains, but he doesn’t make any notable effort to escape Mingyu’s clutches as he shoves his lunchbox into the top shelf. “Seokmin asked me for your address last night. You guys finally talked it out, huh?”

Mingyu nods, feeling loose and happy after a week of tension. “Have I told you,” he mumbles half into Minghao’s shoulder, “how much I appreciate you? Because I appreciate you a _lot_.”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Minghao says again, with more feeling.

\--

Seokmin, at the start of Literature, slaps Mingyu on the shoulder so hard his eyes actually tear up. “I’m proud of you,” he says brightly, giving him two thumbs up. “Let’s get coffee to celebrate?”

Mingyu narrows his eyes at Seokmin, who just smiles wider in response. “You’re just gonna make me pay for you,” he accuses.

Seokmin places a hand over his heart dramatically. “You wound me,” he sniffs. “If it weren’t for me you would still be moping around like a kicked puppy.”

“I did not look like a kicked puppy,” Mingyu says, offended. “I handle my pain with _grace_.”

Minghao snorts loudly. The teacher yells at them to be quiet. Mingyu has never felt more insulted in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in light of the recent allegations against mingyu, this will be the last chapter i'm releasing until pledis puts out a statement, at which point i'll evaluate whether i want to continue with the story. i also realize that there are a lot of themes in this chapter, and in this fic overall, that could be interpreted as a direct response to what is happening right now. i would like to clarify that it isn't; these chapters were written MONTHS prior to posting, back in december.  
> stay safe y'all, and remember to take a break from social media if it ever starts being too much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back y'all! thank you for waiting, and i hope these past few weeks weren't too hard for you, what with everything that went down. now that the bulk of the allegations have been cleared, i feel comfortable posting regularly again, hopefully with the same upload schedule as before - wednesdays and fridays.  
> happy reading <3

When they enter the coffee shop, there are three other people there, ordering at the counter. Mingyu recognizes Seungkwan’s rusty brown hair, hears Chan’s signature “HA HA HA” laugh, and immediately breaks into a grin.

He approaches Seungkwan first, flinging his arms around his shoulders and leaning in close to whisper, “guess who?”

Seungkwan yelps, spins around, and winds his fist back like he’s about to invert Mingyu’s nose. Mingyu instinctively raises his hands in surrender. “Don’t do that,” Seungkwan complains when he recognizes who it is, lowering his fist. “Soonyoung scared me this morning and I accidentally kicked him in the leg.” 

Vernon makes a face. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an accident,” he says, “you  _ did _ threaten to steal his identity and commit tax fraud with it-”

“Oh- _ kay _ , moving swiftly on,” Seungkwan says quickly, shooting a murderous look in Vernon’s direction - it’s a little disturbing how often Seungkwan tries to kill his friends, Mingyu should probably fear for his own life - before something over Mingyu’s shoulder catches his attention. “Seokmin, you’re here too?”

Mingyu frowns, feeling about as surprised as Seungkwan sounds at the revelation that Seokmin is a mutual friend. But then he remembers that musical rehearsals started last week, and both Seungkwan and Seokmin are the physical embodiments of theatre kids, and suddenly things start making sense. 

Oh, God - Soonyoung is in the musical too. Mingyu feels a headache coming on just thinking about the three of them meeting.

Seungkwan and Seokmin break off from their respective friend groups to have a loud, dramatic conversation about the musical. Minghao and Chan, who are both part of this mysterious dance club Mingyu knows absolutely nothing about, are talking quietly in the corner. Suddenly left alone, Mingyu and Vernon blink awkwardly at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter.

“So, what’s going on with you?” Vernon asks. His headphones are dangling from one ear, playing music so loud Mingyu can hear the bass from a foot away. 

“Just school,” Mingyu says. “How’s soccer without me?”

Vernon scrunches his face up in distaste. “Now that you’re gone Seungkwan and Chan bully me instead,” he complains. “They keep saying I have a ‘white boy ass’. What does that even  _ mean _ ?”

Mingyu pats his arm in sympathy. “They’re public menaces,” he agrees. “Remember when they called me ‘Germgyu’ for a full month?”

Vernon frowns. “I mean, you sneezed into your hand and then touched Chan’s hair, that  _ is  _ pretty gross-”

“A whole  _ month _ , Vernon,” Mingyu says. He’s getting worked up just thinking about it. Vernon takes a cautious step back, half-raising his hands in surrender. Mingyu takes several deep breaths and shoots him an apologetic look. “I’m gonna go order. Talk to you later?”

That seems to placate Vernon, who lowers his hands with a laugh. “Yeah. I’ll send you some memes.”

“Please don’t,” Mingyu says automatically. All of Vernon’s so-called ‘memes’ make him feel like he’s having an existential crisis and a really bad acid trip at the same time. Vernon gives him two ambiguous thumbs-up and leaves.

\--

Wonwoo walks next to him on the way home. “Hey, your cowlick is still there,” Mingyu says, reaching out to smooth it down the same way he did in the morning. “It’s cute.”

Wonwoo huffs, but doesn’t pull away.  _ Cute _ , Mingyu’s brain screams at him, as if he doesn’t know that already. “Junhui tried for twenty minutes during Philosophy, don’t bother. It’s immovable. Interminable.”

“Ugh, of course you’re in that super hard Philosophy class,” Mingyu says, dropping his hand back to his side. Wonwoo looks nice like this anyways - a little funny, sure, but soft and rumpled. “And you probably  _ enjoy _ it, you nerd.”

“It’s  _ interesting _ ,” Wonwoo argues, even as he turns slightly pink. “I don’t see why people hate it so much.”

“Does Junhui find it interesting?” Junhui doesn’t seem like the kind of person to enjoy Philosophy. He’s way too chaotic. One time in Calc Mingyu watched him eat an entire lemon in twenty seconds, just as a fun morning snack.

“He plays Candy Crush under his desk the whole time,” Wonwoo admits. Which sounds about right. “Also, you have no right to call me a nerd, you’re in twelfth grade math.”

“Yeah, but I hate it like a normal person,” Mingyu says. “Also, I’m too sexy to be a nerd.”

Wonwoo hums. “I don’t know about that,” he says. Which,  _ rude _ .

\--

The next day, after school, Mingyu has one of the best practices he’s had in a while. And if it has anything to do with the familiar figure huddled in on himself at the end of the bleachers, dressed in all-black, he’s not going to admit it out loud.

\--

“You’re back,” Mingyu says when he approaches Wonwoo, who looks up from his textbook. 

Wonwoo laughs. “Yeah,” he confirms. “I’m back.”

They fall into a silence that’s - well. It’s not awkward, but it’s not exactly comfortable either, thrumming with a slight undercurrent of tension. Mingyu doesn’t know why the tension’s there, but he knows that he can’t look away. The cowlick from yesterday is gone. Mingyu almost feels like mourning the loss.

“Mingyu!”

Mingyu yelps and, predictably, drops his gym bag directly onto his foot. Wonwoo laughs at him.

Soonyoung jogs over, waving Mingyu’s water bottle in the air. “You left this on the bench,” he says. “You’re lucky I recognized it was yours, or Baekho would’ve taken it to the lost and found.”

“Thanks,” Mingyu says, picking up his bag and reaching out for the bottle, only to find it farther away from him than before. He looks up and sees that Soonyoung has recoiled out of shock, pointing openly at Wonwoo, who looks a little uncomfortable as he stares back.

“Hey, it’s you! Junhui’s hot friend!” Soonyoung exclaims. And, well - he isn’t  _ wrong _ . “You’re Mingyu’s secret admirer?”

Mingyu chokes on nothing. The blush on Wonwoo’s cheeks turns several shades darker as he says, slowly, “that would be me. What’s this about a secret admirer?”

Mingyu recovers enough of his senses to glare at Soonyoung. “Yeah,” he says forcefully, “what’s this about my secret admirer?”

“Oh, nothing,” Soonyoung waves his hand dismissively - Mingyu tries to grab his water bottle again, but fails - “it’s just something we’ve been calling you, because you’re like, always here, and Mingyu always looks super excited when he sees you.”

Mingyu can feel his face racing to match the exact shade of pink Wonwoo’s has achieved. Once again, it’s not like Soonyoung’s even  _ wrong _ \- in fact, he’s extremely, humiliatingly right. “Can I please have my water bottle back,” he says feebly.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Soonyoung tosses the bottle back to Mingyu, who just barely manages to avoid fumbling the catch and dropping it like a loser. “Anyways, I gotta go. See you tomorrow morning, Mingyu! It was nice to meet you, Junhui’s hot friend slash Mingyu’s not-so-secret admirer!”

This last part is called over his shoulder as he jogs away, leaving Mingyu and Wonwoo standing in awkward silence in his wake. Mingyu puts his water bottle back in his bag, frantically searching for something to say and vaguely wanting to kill Soonyoung, good intentions be damned. 

Unexpectedly, it’s Wonwoo who breaks the silence. “If you can believe it, someone called Junhui my hot friend a few days ago.”

Mingyu looks up at him and is met with a wry smile, which effectively dissolves all the tension in his shoulders. “I  _ can _ believe it,” he says. “You two are a menace.”

Wonwoo laughs. “Thanks, I guess.” He stands up, rolling his shoulders back. It’s weirdly really attractive, Mingyu thinks. Then again, Wonwoo could do something as mundane as sharpen a pencil and Mingyu would still find it attractive. (He’ll find a platonic explanation for that later.) “I’ll see you in the courtyard?”

Mingyu beams up at him. “Of course.”

\--

Halfway through their walk to the bus stop, in a lull in their conversation where they’re both just enjoying the music blasting through the headphones dangling between them, Mingyu finds himself just  _ staring _ .

He doesn’t know why. Well - that’s not true. It’s partially because Wonwoo is, again, obviously, handsome as hell, but that alone isn’t enough to draw Mingyu’s undivided attention. After all, Mingyu looks in the mirror every day. All his friends are hot. He’s gotten used to hotness, at this point. (He can  _ see _ Minghao rolling his eyes at this, but whatever.) 

It’s just - somehow, he can’t look away.

He catches the way Wonwoo’s eyes flick over to him, then flick back down to the ground, sees the muscles in his neck move as he clears his throat and says, “it’s rude to stare, you know.”

Mingyu blinks. “I can’t help it,” he says, which is pretty much the truth. And then, because that sounded weird as hell, he tacks on, “I’m appreciating the company. It was pretty lonely, going home by myself.”

The long pause that follows gives him ample time to digest what he just said. And now he’s panicking, because  _ what the hell, Mingyu _ ?  _ Appreciating _ the  _ company _ ? Who even  _ says _ that, God, why is he  _ so awkward _ -

“Sorry,” Wonwoo says, so quietly that it’s almost drowned out by Mingyu’s internal rambling. “It won’t happen again.”

“What?” Mingyu asks, feeling disoriented. He’s not sure he heard right.

Wonwoo looks up at him, eyes clear and honest. “I won’t leave you alone again,” he says, firm. “I promise.”

Mingyu, for the first time, looks back at Wonwoo and glimpses behind the walls, sees a vulnerability he’d only grasped at before. But what he sees isn’t scary, doesn’t even feel all that new. Wonwoo’s eyes are warm, just as they have always been, but now it’s like Mingyu is standing out in the sun, instead of feeling the heat through the glass.

So Mingyu laughs, happy and comfortable, and basks in the sunlight. “You can’t promise that,” he teases. “What, are you going to watch me when I sleep?”

Wonwoo huffs and rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “The  _ moment _ , Mingyu,” he scolds.

Mingyu laughs. “Sorry, sorry.” He flaps his hands. “Ignore me. You were saying?”

“Ugh, no, you’ve ruined it forever, it’s unsalvageable,” Wonwoo says. “Let’s just continue walking in silence.”

Mingyu groans. “Walking in silence  _ sucks _ ,” he complains. “I don’t know how you do the whole-” he schools his face into a close imitation of Wonwoo’s impassive stare “-silent and brooding thing. It seems boring.”

“Wow, rude,” Wonwoo says. “Not everyone’s default volume is a hundred decibels, you know. Seriously, you should protect your vocal cords-”

Mingyu starts, pathetically gullible, “nothing’s wrong with my vocal cords-”

“-it would be a  _ sound investment _ ,” Wonwoo finishes.

“ _ Ughhhhhhhhhh, _ ” Mingyu groans emphatically. Wonwoo just smiles to himself.

\--

Despite Mingyu ruining the moment, Wonwoo stays true to his word and shows up to every single practice for the rest of the season. Soonyoung actually learns Wonwoo’s name and starts using it in place of what he’d been calling him before, which is great for Mingyu’s blood pressure and Wonwoo’s too, probably. Sometimes, Wonwoo will have some stuff left over from lunch and, having already gotten acquainted with Mingyu’s bottomless stomach, always saves it for him. It’s usually not much, just two chicken nuggets or an apple, but it makes Mingyu weirdly happy regardless.

(Minghao will argue that it’s because of the person who’s giving it to him, but Mingyu is  _ not _ going to think about that, thank you very much.)

They play well enough to qualify for the tournament, and continue playing well in the tournament. Wonwoo doesn’t come to the games, because half of them are away games and they all last a long-ass time, and his life probably doesn’t revolve around Mingyu’s high school soccer career. Mingyu plays well regardless, and although he’s not on the starting lineup, he starts spending more and more time on the field, leaving each game with an ache in his legs that feels like a reward. 

The rest of the season passes by in a blur until, all of a sudden, they’ve made it to the finals, and Mingyu is standing on the field staring at the bleachers, which are slowly filling up with people. 

It’s not a surprise that they’ve made it this far - their school has a pretty extensive past of doing well in the annual tournament. Hell, Mingyu is part of that past - he led the junior varsity team to the semi-finals last year. But it’s a home game, and he recognizes a solid third of the faces in the crowd, and his mom is here, and the lights overhead are really, really bright, so he stands there and feels the knot in his chest grow tighter. 

“YO! KIM MINGYU!”

Mingyu flinches and looks towards the source of the sound. To his horror, so do half of the team.

It takes him only a few seconds to find them - Minghao, Seokmin, Junhui, and Wonwoo are sitting towards the top left corner of the bleachers, each of them clutching some form of school-mandated paraphernalia. Seokmin has his hands cupped around his mouth, which explains the sheer volume of that yell, because he is a theatre kid who has been belting his entire life. There’s paint on his forehead. Next to him, Junhui and Minghao are cackling maniacally -  _ we aren’t gonna be friends, my ass _ , Mingyu thinks - and jointly waving a giant foam hand. Situated at the very end of their little four-person row, Wonwoo has one hand propping his chin up, the other holding a pom-pom in their school colors, smiling.

Like they’re in some sort of gross teenage romcom, he catches Mingyu’s eye. Holds his gaze. Mouths, distinctly,  _ you got this _ . The knot in Mingyu’s chest loosens.

“YOU’RE SUPER SEXY, KIM MINGYU!” Seokmin bellows, which simultaneously ruins the moment and triggers Mingyu’s fight-or-flight instinct. Laughter ripples through the bleachers. Mingyu’s teammates snicker, and Soonyoung wanders over to slap his ass. 

Mingyu buries face in his hands, smiling despite the searing humiliation.

\--

Halfway through the game, when they’re behind a few points, Mingyu looks up from his spot on the bench and spots his mom, standing with a few other parents towards the back, still in her work clothes. She’s watching the game intently, not even paying attention to him, but the knowledge that she’s there makes the base of his neck prickle.

He gets subbed on a few moments later. Like his body is a completely separate force from his mind (and maybe it is), he doesn’t play  _ well _ \- but he doesn’t play badly, either. In a few months, he’ll probably stop thinking about his performance in this game altogether. It likely won’t make any impact on his position in the team.

Still - his mom is watching, and so are his friends, and they lose. He plays like he’s always played, and they lose. 

No one says anything, of course. The team is oppressively silent as they trudge to the showers; only the captain, Baekho, talks for a few moments about the postseason dinner the coach is treating them to. And even that is quiet, ringing dully against the tiled floor, muffled by the ringing slam of locker doors. Mingyu feels the heat of the steam against his skin and struggles to breathe.

Outside, he gulps down the cool night air. His friends come over a few moments later to envelop him in a group hug. Soonyoung and Jihoon are there, too, because Soonyoung knows everyone but he’s also attached to Jihoon by the hip. 

Mingyu doesn’t cry; Seokmin does enough of that for both of them and then some, still managing to tell Mingyu how sexy he looked through his tears. Minghao shoves some food in his face, Junhui ruffles his hair, and Soonyoung slings an arm around his shoulders. Jihoon, for his part, punches him lightly in the arm and tells him to keep his chin up, which coming from him is basically a penned love confession.

(Wonwoo lingers at the edge of the group, silent. Mingyu doesn’t dare to look at him.)

Still, Mingyu doesn’t say anything, except for short answers to whatever his friends ask him. Minghao notices, because he always does; he pulls Mingyu away from the rest of their friends and says, soft, “you did well, Mingyu. Seriously. There wasn’t anything else you could have done.”

“I know,” Mingyu says, not looking Minghao in the eye, not wanting to say that that’s the whole problem - there wasn’t anything else he could’ve done. 

Minghao’s frowning, when Mingyu looks up at him, and Mingyu knows his concerns aren’t appeased. He didn’t expect them to be - Minghao is both unwaveringly caring and extremely perceptive. But this is something he just doesn’t talk about, so he gives Minghao a smile, no teeth, a wordless end to their conversation. “I’m fine, Minghao. Thank you.”

Minghao sighs, still unsatisfied, but grabs Mingyu’s hand and leads him back to the rest of the group anyways. Aside from being caring and perceptive, he’s also known Mingyu long enough to be familiar with his boundaries. To know that, beneath the chatty, clumsy exterior, Mingyu is quiet and unyielding and stubborn.

Mingyu makes a mental note to learn another Chinese dish to cook for Minghao the next time he comes over, and allows himself to be steered back into the conversation.

\--

The first time Mingyu does poorly on a math test is in eighth grade.

The test had completely slipped Mingyu’s mind, having been scheduled right after three other tests in three different classes. By the time that fateful Monday rolls around, Mingyu is unprepared, sleep deprived, and crammed full to bursting with random, unrelated knowledge.

It isn’t because he doesn’t understand the concepts - math has always been his strong suit, after all. He’s just tired, and his brain is scrambled, and the dumb little mistakes like forgetting the negative and adding numbers wrong add up and then he’s going home with a mark twenty percent lower than his average.

His mom doesn’t say anything, because she doesn’t know. In eighth grade, she no longer checks his individual grades, because she trusts him to do well on his own. A trust he clearly doesn’t deserve. Mingyu doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night. 

The next morning, Minghao squints at him and says, “what happened to you?”

He doesn’t know about the math test, of course; Mingyu has never been one to share grades. “Nothing,” he says. “Do you want to come over this weekend and work on our essays together?”

“Sure,” Minghao says, and then reaches out an arm to stop him. He does, albeit with a little reluctance, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, halfway to school. He keeps his eyes on his shoes, so he can’t see the look on Minghao’s face when he says, a little gentler, “you look awful. What’s wrong?”

Mingyu forces out a laugh. “You’re so rude, Minghao,” he says loudly. “I never look awful, thank you very much.”

Minghao doesn’t answer, just squints at him. He lets them continue walking, though, so Mingyu considers his deflection a success.

The rest of the day goes by about the same way - Minghao’s questions about his well-being vary between extremely subtle and extremely straight-foward, and Mingyu dodges them with accompanying levels of ease. Minghao gets increasingly, visibly annoyed with each instance, which Mingyu feels bad about, but not bad enough to talk about it.

Minghao snaps on their walk home. “If you’re going to be such an asshole,” he says, “then I’m not going to bother caring about you anymore.”

And Mingyu really, honestly, truly feels bad. The last person he wants to let down is Minghao, who has become his closest friend since Seokmin’s abrupt departure, and who is steadfast and warm underneath his finely honed insults. But he has to, because what else could he possibly say? How can he be expected to undermine years of firmly maintained silence in one day?

“Suit yourself,” he says, and hates himself. They don’t talk for the rest of the walk home.

Mingyu doesn’t sleep well that night either. But this time, his mind isn’t running through all the things he did wrong on the test, but instead on everything Minghao has come to mean to him in the past two years.

Minghao, who defended him when other kids made fun of his dark complexion. Minghao, who doesn’t need to ask where the plates and bowls are whenever he stays for dinner. Minghao, who has never once laughed at him for crying, and whose eyes light up whenever Mingyu makes him a dish from home. 

Minghao, who is still waiting for him at their usual spot the next morning, despite having every reason not to. He looks like he didn’t get that much sleep, either.

Mingyu says, “it’s a school thing.”

Minghao blinks, quickly wiping the surprise off his face. “What kind of school thing?” he asks, neutral.

“My grades.” Mingyu looks down at his feet as they walk. “I care a lot about them.”

Minghao snorts, a break in his indifferent facade, so characteristic of him that it kind of makes Mingyu want to cry with relief. “I figured.”

“But I don’t like talking about them,” Mingyu says. “I never have. I probably won’t like talking about them for a while.”

_ I’m sorry for being an asshole _ .  _ Thank you for always caring about me _ , is what he doesn’t say. He figures Minghao hears it in his voice anyways, because things go back to normal after that.

On the weekend, before Minghao comes over, Mingyu buys a shit ton of Chinese hawthorn and makes  _ bing tang hulu _ . The ache in his back from standing over boiling syrup for an hour is worth it, when he sees that gleam in Minghao’s eyes again.

\--

His mom’s face is as inscrutable as always, even in the harsh lighting over the bleachers, especially so in the subdued darkness of the car ride home. Mingyu stares out the window, at the scenery he’s seen countless times, and replays the game over and over in his head.

Finally, about five minutes in, she asks, piercing through the silence, “what are you going to do now that soccer’s done?”

Mingyu shifts a little in his seat, sits up a little straighter. His mom’s questions have always felt like interrogations, like tests - partially because they are. Thankfully, Mingyu has become very good at preparing for tests over the past few years. “There aren’t a lot of clubs that accept new members this late,” he says, “but I was thinking of the culinary club and the business club.”

“What do you do in the business club?” she asks. She doesn’t ask about the culinary club, because it’s always been clear that Mingyu’s cooking is just a hobby.

“It’s like a student-run university prep class,” Mingyu says, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie. “They teach content that’s taught in intro-level university business courses. Like finance management and marketing and stuff.”

She hums. It’s a good hum - a satisfied one. “Anything else?”

“I think I’m also going to start hitting the gym again,” Mingyu says. “I have to stay in shape for next year.”

Another satisfied hum. “You played well today, Mingyu.”

“Yeah.” It feels like the word’s being forced out of his mouth through sheer repetition. The silence that follows is deafening, and he slumps back against the car window, the chill of the glass grounding him.

\--

He doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night. He’s learned a lot in the three years between eighth grade and now, though, so instead of just staring at the ceiling with all the blinds open he just reads ahead for his classes. Tipping the scales back in favor of his competence, he likes to think.

He’s a little glad that soccer season is over.


End file.
